WASHINGTON - Ray LaHood, the new secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, says tolls and public-private partnerships should be among the ways Congress funds infrastructure construction, but existing interstate highway lanes should remain toll-free.

Fuel taxes are inadequate to fund infrastructure construction and repair, according to LaHood, and the United States needs to be "innovative" in financing its roadways, adding he favors tolls on new construction and the use of public-private partnerships.

LaHood says he opposes "the idea of taking an interstate and putting a toll booth on it," but if "you want to have an additional lane and you want to toll it, or if you want to build a bridge thats going to cost a lot of money, I think people ought to think about tolls on the bridge as a way to pay for it," he says.

"The idea of taking part of the interstate highway thats already there and people are using and putting tolls on that, personally I think that is not a good idea," LaHood said.

Echoing some of the Bush administrations beliefs about highway funding, LaHood said the government was "going to have to think innovatively," adding that transportation dollars would have to be generated "differently than just the gasoline tax."

"Public-private" partnerships will have to be part of the way governments increase money for transportation, he said.

LaHood said the fuel tax, the main financing source for the Highway Trust Fund, is "a dinosaur." Fuel taxes were "developed when [President Dwight D.] Eisenhower and the Congress came up with the idea" of the Interstate Highway System, LaHood said. "Weve come far afield of that," he said, adding that he was "willing to listen to all ideas" on highway finance.

LaHood, 63, had just retired from the U.S. House after seven terms when Obama picked him to be secretary of transportation, and a Republican in a Democratic administration.

First elected in 1994, LaHood represented a district that included Peoria, Ill. - headquarters of engine maker Caterpillar.