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The quick fix gets a bad rap.

Standard criticism that it fails to address the root of a problem and its long-term solution overlooks two important attributes of the quick fix.

It’s quick.

And it’s a fix.

Which brings us to Interstate 75.

If ever a road was in need of a quick fix, it is the stretch of I-75 between Naples and Fort Myers. You can set your watch by the morning and afternoon traffic jams that form on the so-called expressway in the busy season. Even out of season, bumper-to-bumper crawls are apt to break out at any time.

Federal funding to widen the road was moving no faster than a dump truck heading north at 5 p.m. on a Friday until U.S. Reps Connie Mack and Mario Diaz-Balart teamed up to get $91 million included in the 2005 transportation bill. The plan was to widen the highway from four lanes to six, commencing next May.

Now there is talk of putting off that work in favor of using the money to add four toll lanes, as opposed to two non-toll lanes.

Please.

Weary motorists are in no mood for the additional months or years it would take to evaluate the toll-lane plan then put it into action.

Even before the Southwest Florida Expressway Authority endorsed Collier Transportation Director Norman Feder’s idea to study the switch from a two-lane addition to a four-lane addition, there had been substantial consideration given to toll lanes.

In fact, that’s what the Expressway Authority was created to do — study the feasibility of, and perhaps build and operate, toll lanes. But not at the expense of the long-awaited and about-to-be-realized non-toll expansion.

It is apparent that Interstate 75 in Southwest Florida will one day have to be wider than six lanes. In other words, the project scheduled to begin next year is a quick fix.

But it is quick. And it is a fix.

The roots of the problem of traffic on I-75 — relentless growth throughout the region and the dearth of affordable housing in Collier County in particular — aren’t going to be solved any time soon. And the long-term solution, an interstate as wide as 10 lanes, can be implemented later through the auspices of the Expressway Authority.

Aides to both Mack and Diaz-Balart agree that changing the nature of the project from two lanes to four toll lanes wouldn’t put the federal dollars, which are just a portion of the $470 million needed to complete the work, at risk.

Congress authorized the money to widen I-75 and it will be up to the state to determine the manner in which to do so, agreed Mack spokesman Jeff Cohen and Diaz-Balart spokesman Thomas Bean.

But neither congressman would be thrilled by further delay. “Typically, we are not happy with tolls, because it’s another tax. (Diaz-Balart) is not very big on taxes,” Bean said.

Cohen struck a more moderate note. “(Mack) has said from the beginning if there was a way to do 10 lanes, that’s the way to go. We have a severe traffic problem now. We need as many lanes as soon as possible.”

More lanes. Soon.

It may only be a quick fix, but in the case of I-75, it’s appropriate.

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E-mail Brent Batten at bebatten@naplesnews.com.