“For 20 years, Congress has had its head in the sand, pretending that money is going to fall off trees for infrastructure. It’s time to stop pretending.”

That’s what Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told a crowd in New Haven on Friday, where he called on Congress to “enact a sensible, modest increase” in the federal gas tax to pay for badly-needed road, rail and bridge maintenance.

The federal gas tax, now 18.4 cents per gallon, hasn’t seen an increase since 1993. Murphy’s proposal calls for 6-cent per gallon increases in 2015 and 2016, which would bring the tax up to where inflation would have taken it over the last two decades.

Senator Murphy’s message was well-received by an audience which included not only transportation advocates and labor unions, but also members of local chambers of commerce. Senator Murphy noted that raising the gas tax has support from a broad constituency, including two groups that don’t tend to find much common ground.

“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington supports this, the AFL-CIO supports this,” Murphy said. “Both business and labor understand the imperative of fixing this problem.”

A rusting bridge that carries Interstate 91 over the Quinnipiac River was the perfect backdrop for Murphy’s call. The bridge is one of Connecticut’s many structurally-deficient bridges, and is scheduled to be replaced in 2017 with $13 million in federal funding.