It might be hard to tell from their passionate and biting rhetoric, but Democrats and Republicans at the Capitol have already found accord on transportation needs.

Both DFL Gov. Mark Dayton and the Republican House believe the state’s roads and bridges need billions upon billions more in spending. And they believe the spending needs to be long-term and sustainable.

Although the two — and the DFL-controlled Senate — will bicker for the next two months on the details, wise transportation advocates should take a victory lap right about now. The agreement on the need does not mean it will be fulfilled but, this far from the May end of session, it is worthy of note.

Dayton and the Senate DFL have proposed spending about $8 billion on roads and bridges, and more on transit, over the next 10 years. House Republicans would spend $7 billion during the same period, they revealed this week.

That bipartisan agreement — that billions are needed to boost road and bridge investments — is new.

Back when Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed a 2008 gas tax hike, the Capitol debate was not over only to tax or not to tax. It was also whether to spend any significant amount on transportation at all.

That year, shortly before Democrats and a few Republicans teamed up to override the governor, Pawlenty took a low profile on the issue. His only plan: borrowing $240 million to replace local roads and bridges. His only mantra: No gas tax hike. He proposed nothing for state transportation or transit.

Now, those in charge are making clear that they want to spend.

Read the similarity in their words this week:

“We’ve spent the last few months listening to Minnesotans. Of course, we know that they want us to make a significant investment in our road and bridge infrastructure,” said House Speaker Kurt Daudt, R-Crown.

“This is a long-term problem that needs a long-term solution,” Dayton said about the House proposal.

“I think everybody understands that we need to make that investment,” said House Minority Leader Paul Thissen, a Minneapolis DFLer and the former House Speaker. “That is a shift.”

Even the Minnesota Chamber was cheering. The Chamber had fought Dayton’s multibillion plan for months, saying it was too spendy without proof all the cash was needed.

“A $7 billion investment is substantial,” Chamber interim president Bill Blazar said of the House plan. “The House majority deserves credit for figuring out how to get this level of investment into the system without raising taxes.”

How lawmakers and the governor want to get the money to spend will subsume lawmakers and the governor until May.

“Where that money is going to come from is the subject of an honest debate and disagreement,” Dayton said.

Dayton and the Senate DFL plan relies heavily on funding from a new sales tax on gasoline and local tax increases, which Republicans say are nonstarters in the House.

Republicans would largely take cash currently collected for other state needs and redirect it to transportation. Dayton says that is ill-advised and other Republican transportation spending figures are based on “fantasy.”

Democrats are also sorely disappointed, but unsurprised, that Republicans want to hobble the Metropolitan Council and lack any major plan for transit in the Twin Cities and its environs.

But the DFL governor, who started his second term pledging major spending on transportation, knew that Republicans’ multibillion-dollar promise was significant.

“We’re engaged in it now,” he said.

Rachel E. Stassen-Berger’s column appears Wednesdays in the Pioneer Press. She can be reached at rstassen-berger@pioneerpress.com.