STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, OCT. 22, 2014.....Seeking to secure a revenue stream for transportation projects, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh threw his support Wednesday behind the effort to defeat Question 1 on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Walsh said indexing the gas tax to inflation would provide funding for needed safety upgrades.

"Question 1 would make an already urgent public safety problem worse by cutting the very funds we need to fix our crumbling roads and bridges," Walsh said in a statement. "Every city and town official in the state is intimately aware of the need to have a stable, dependable stream of funds to address this growing problem."

After the Legislature in 2013 raised the gas tax 3 cents and indexed future gas tax increases to inflation, more than 100,000 Massachusetts residents signed a ballot petition that would repeal the indexing portion of the law. Walsh served in the House in 2013 and voted in favor of the tax bill.

"Most goods and products are shipped by truck. This tax effectively increases the price of every product," Tank the Gas Tax argues on its website. The site says, "If the legislature is allowed to increase this tax without a vote, they will link other taxes such as property and income taxes to inflation next."

Other mayors have also signed onto the effort to defeat the ballot initiative, including Attleboro Mayor Kevin Dumas, a Republican.

"This is not a Republican or Democratic question," said Dumas in a statement. "It is a public safety issue, pure and simple."

In addition to the ballot effort, the political action committee TankTheGasTax.net has targeted Democratic state lawmakers and endorsed several opponents seeking to win election to the body that approved the gas tax indexing law.

A SocialSphere poll of 401 likely voters conducted in late September for the Boston Globe found 42-40 in favor of repealing the law, within the margin of error. The poll found passage of the referendum was very popular in the Merrimack Valley, and opponents of the repeal effort had an edge in areas just outside of Boston.

Along with Walsh and Dumas, the repeal effort has been endorsed by Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno, Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz, Lawrence Mayor Daniel Rivera, Revere Mayor Daniel Rizzo, Melrose Mayor Robert Dolan, Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria, Newburyport Mayor Donna Holaday, New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn, Braintree Mayor Joseph Sullivan, Salem Mayor Kimberly Driscoll and Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone.

On Tuesday, the Washington, D.C.-based TRIP research company announced findings that state road conditions contribute to accidents, cause wear and tear on vehicles and create congestion, leading to $8.3 billion in added costs to drivers.

Holly Robichaud, a Boston Herald columnist and political consultant working on the effort to repeal the indexing, responded to that study saying, "Why would we want to pay them any more money when we're paying premium prices for crappy roads?"