RANDOLPH - The state's top transportation officials told South Shore business leaders Tuesday that she was committed to tackling the region’s transportation problems but warned that they wouldn’t be solved by adding freeway lanes or building bridges.

"In most cases, in most places in the commonwealth, we are not going to build our way out of congestion," Secretary of Transportation Stephanie Pollack said at breakfast hosted by the South Shore Chamber of Commerce at Lombardo's in Randolph. "We are a vary mature commonwealth. There is not a lot of room to be building new roads and building new bridges."

Pollack, a transit advocate and academic who was tapped for the post by Gov. Charlie Baker in 2015 just before a series of record-breaking winter storms that laid bare problems with the region’s transportation infrastructure, addressed the chamber as it prepares to release its own report on what it sees as the South Shore’s top transportation priorities. Braintree Mayor Joseph Sullivan, who co-chaired the group that developed the report, said many of the priorities became clear after the 2015 storms, which crippled the Red Line for days and left many streets impassible.

"We didn’t know then, but we know now that it was a blessing in disguise," he said. "That winter revealed fundamental weaknesses in our MBTA and commuter rails system."

Sullivan said those problems continue to be the most pressing transportation issues facing the South Shore, a region that business leaders believe will continue to see a rapid increase in development in the coming decade. Among the seven transportation priorities identified by the chamber, the top two relate to expanding access and improving reliability for the Red Line and commuter rail.

Sullivan said building more parking for people who use the trains will be key making them an option for commuters, particularly after the abrupt closure of the structurally deficient Quincy Center MBTA garage in 2012. Speaking after the breakfast, Sullivan said he had talked to T officials about studying the feasibility of adding a third level to the parking garage at the Braintree station, possibly in conjunction with adjacent development.

Pollack acknowledged that the T had failed to properly maintain the Quincy Center garage and said it was symptomatic of a failed approach to transportation infrastructure that she attributed to her predecessors.

"When we came in, there was no game plan -- or game plan to have a game plan -- for what was going to happen,” she said. The plan was literally to let it sit there in the sate it was in, indefinitely."

Pollack told the business leaders that her administration is working on solutions to several problems with transportation infrastructure on the South Shore, including congestion around the Braintree split, accessibility problems at the Wollaston T station and limitations with the Red Line that prevents the T from running cars more frequently. But she said some solutions to transportation problems are going to come through better use of information and data, pointing to a recently announced partnership with the maker of the navigation app Waze that she said will help drivers avoid traffic, construction sites and road hazards.

"Information is our best weapon against congestion," she said.

Pollack said officials are also looking at the possibility of upgrading Wollaston station – the only station on the Red, Orange or Blue lines that is not yet accessible to people with mobility impairments – and building a new set of tracks that would allow the T to run Red Line and commuter rail trains more frequently south of the Savin Hill station in Dorchester. She said the project, which would could include the construction of a second underground track below a part of the Red Line near Savin Hill where trains heading in both directions must use a single track, could be a "game changer" for commuters.

"Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't work, but we stated putting some engineering money into it because we need to be solving problems, not building projects," she said.