On Friday, a bipartisan group of state lawmakers announced they would abandon efforts to rush through a last-minute proposal to raise auto registration fees and other taxes to boost money for highway maintenance.

We say good riddance to that effort.

Not that finding additional money for highway maintenance is a bad idea. As officials with the Colorado Department of Transportation have been eager to point out in recent weeks, federal funding for highways is shrinking and many planned highway improvement projects are likely to be delayed.

But the bill dumped last week was hastily put together in late April, and some of its key provisions were moving targets.

Much like a proposal earlier in this legislative season, which this newspaper opposed and which was eventually scrapped, Senate Bill 244 would have depended in large part on an increase in vehicle registration fees. Instead of the $100-per-vehicle average increase that was part of the earlier proposal, SB 244 would have scaled that back to $25 per vehicle.

It would also have created a new rental-car fee of $6 each time one rented a car, although there was talk of reducing that to $3 per rental.

SB 244 originally contained a plan to prevent annual registration fees from dropping below $75 per vehicle, regardless of a vehicle’s age or value. Existing vehicles would have been grandfathered in at their current annual fee levels.

But, as opponents of the measure pointed out, these increases would fall most heavily on those with the least finacial resources to pay for them.

And because all of this involved specific fees, not taxes as defined by the state’s TABOR Amendment, the increases could have been implemented without asking voters for approval.

Fortunately, a number of lawmakers objected, notably Grand Junction state Sen. Josh Penry.

Kudos to Penry and others who helped kill SB 244. The fact that its sponsors were rapidly changing its provisions throughout much of last week, in response to various objections, shows how poorly it was conceived and the need for a more thoughtful approach to highway funding.

Now, members of both parties say they will work over the summer to find a highway funding plan that can achieve bipartisan support. One idea reportedly on the table deserves serious consideration: using expected increases in state severance tax revenue to help fund part of the additional highway revenue.

Whatever they do, legislators must look for highway funding mechanisms that are fair to all Colorado citizens, not just convenient because they don’t require voter approval.