If you’ve been able to stay awake while reading recent San Francisco Chronicle articles about the cost overruns of the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge, you may have realized something about all the financial hubbub.

The new span is too expensive – at least $2.3 billion over budget- and no one knows who will pay for it.

That is, except Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who thinks you should.

Originally, the governor was prepared to sign a bill to get the next phase of construction going but only if the Metropolitan Transportation Commission takes control of the project. This stalled discusions in Sacramento and put the whole item on hold.

Schwarzenegger’s plan would leave the commission responsible for paying for the project, whether it had the money or not. This would leave little choice but to raise bridge tolls. Even if the commission found the money to cover the retrofit work, other transportation officials are worried that funding would come out of the budgets for their own projects, like the planned retrofit of the BART Transbay Tube, which could result in ticket price hikes.

So any way you slice it, the construction needs to happen and you and I are likely to pay for it.

Gee whiz, governor. Great idea.

Maybe I’m the exception to the rule, but I don’t have $2.3 billion sitting around. I rarely travel over the Golden Gate Bridge anymore because those $5 tolls add up.

The original plan to rebuild the Bay Bridge from Oakland to the Yerba Buena Island was drafted after a section of the bridge collapsed during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. In 1997, the project was estimated to cost $1.3 billion. Since then, redesigns for the new eastern span - a 1,600-foot, single-tower suspension bridge - and delays in construction that have resulted in increased prices for building materials, labor and other costs. The project will now run at least $5.1 billion and an audit released earlier this month pegged the cost at $7.9 billion to $8.3 billion.

The last time I checked, infrastructure like bridges and highways were there for the benefit of the entire state, not just one region. The Bay Bridge is a critical part of the flow of transit and commerce for California. (Don’t overlook its close proximity to the Port of Oakland, which is one of the largest shipping ports in the nation.) It seems unusual that a pro-business governor like Schwarzenegger would so quickly lose sight of the importance of transportation and access in enticing business back to California.

I’ll admit that bridge tolls in other cities can be more expensive – $4 for the Queens Midtown Tunnel and Triborough Bridge in New York – but it is unfair to punish the commuters for the mistakes of legislators and transportation officials who have let construction drag on and failed to obtain multiple bids for the project in the first place.

So why isn’t the state responsible for the mess it has made? Schwarzenegger can not throw up his hands and refuse to pay because he thinks the bridge is too expensive. Instead, he needs to sit down with legislators and administrators and find a reasonable way to pay for the new span.

The bottom line is this extra $2.3 billion is not my responsibility.