BOSTON - Offering an alternative to higher gas taxes and turnpike tolls, state Republicans lawmakers have filed their own Commuter Bill of Rights.

House and Senate minority leaders Rep. Bradley H. Jones, R-North Reading, and Sen. Richard R. Tisei, R-Wakefield, filed the joint resolution Thursday in response to a report issued this week by the state Transportation Finance Commission.

The commission, which has estimated highway repairs and maintenance could cost $15 billion to $20 billion over 20 years, proposed raising the state's gas tax by 11.5 cents a gallon and adding a "user fee" of 5 cents a mile on some state highways.

"Before we explore revenues raising initiatives, we must take a look at the system and look at how we can do things differently and save money," Tisei said in an interview. "We do spend a lot of money for transportation, but obviously it isn't being spent wisely."

Under the Republican-proposed bill of rights, state officials would promise to exhaust all resources before increasing taxes or fees and pledge more efficient use of the resources provided by public authorities. The announcement did not elaborate on what particular resources would be exhausted.

Jones and Tisei predicted that cost-cutting legislation could save the state more than $100 million a year.

The Republican leaders said some of those savings could come from putting workers with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority into the state's Group Insurance Commission and ending the practice of borrowing money to pay the salaries of MassHighway workers.

"Eighty percent of employees at MassHighway were paid for though bonds. (It's) like paying for hundreds of salaries with a credit card, which is insane," Tisei said.

The Republican proposal would also merge the Turnpike Authority with MassHighway and the MBTA police with the state police.

"We need to look at the whole issue. The money we allocate to MassHighway is for repairs, rather than paying interest on salaries from five years ago," Tisei said.

The goal is to apply a "fix it first" method of repairing roads and bridges, before creating new roadway and subway additions.

"Lots of people don't want to change anything in place right now. Some of the potential solutions will meet opposition, and that's a huge problem. But we can't just keep sweeping things under the rug," Tisei said.