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The New Jersey Turnpike has long been the subject of song and an object of scorn. And now Gov. Jon S. Corzine, who earned a reputation as a shrewd negotiator on Wall Street, is thinking seriously about leasing it out, banking on the hope that it and two other toll roads could fetch as much as $30 billion and hold the key to solving some of the state's nagging fiscal difficulties.

Mr. Corzine's need to secure a fiscal Hail Mary pass is evident: budget talks are looming, and other states, including neighboring Pennsylvania, are interested in leasing their own toll roads, which could create stiff competition for investors' dollars in this emerging market. He is also mindful that any deal will have to be sold to wary voters.

Following recent leases of toll roads in Chicago and in Indiana, New Jersey is among two dozen states that have either formed partnerships with private groups or passed legislation paving the way for such agreements. But as lawmakers from California to Virginia have discovered, efforts to take toll roads, prisons, lotteries and other state assets private can quickly become mired in political quicksand.

Polls show that voters in New Jersey oppose the idea, and powerful lobbying groups, from commuters and trucking companies to environmentalists and public employee unions, are also skeptical.

But the biggest complaint is that to recoup their huge up-front payments and generate returns of 10 percent to 15 percent a year, private operators are winning the right to raise tolls faster than public agencies would have. In the case of the Garden State Parkway, for instance, where tolls have been unchanged for 17 years, a sharp increase would be inevitable.

Some opponents said that they were concerned that the proceeds from these deals would be used to plug immediate financing needs instead of meeting long-term needs.

''New Jersey has a long track record of using short-term fixes for long-term budget problems,'' said Phineas Baxandall, a senior analyst for tax and budget policy at U.S. PIRG, a federation of state government watchdogs, ''If they spend the money in the first 10 years, the question is what happens in Year 11.''

So as Mr. Corzine and his advisers press ahead on deciding on whether and how to structure a deal, the cross-fire in New Jersey, home to some of the country's most heavily traveled toll roads and heftiest state deficits, is already so messy that it threatens not just to bruise the governor but also his fellow Democrats, who face re-election in November.

''New Jersey has its back to the wall in an acute way and Corzine doesn't have a lot of options,'' said John Foote, a senior fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, who studies making highways private. ''He knows this will not be a politically popular decision.''

Despite the pitfalls, long-term lease agreements for toll roads, perhaps the most lucrative source of funds for governments these days, are increasingly common. In 2005, Chicago received $1.8 billion from investors to run the 7.8-mile Skyway for 99 years. Last year, Indiana signed a 75-year lease on the 157-mile Indiana Toll Road, which brought in $3.8 billion.

Mr. Corzine, a former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, who made his name selling debt on Wall Street, is eager to come up with an arrangement before the state's new fiscal year begins on July 1, people who have recently spoken with him say.

The governor will move one step closer to the ability to lease the roads as early as next week, when State Senator Raymond J. Lesniak is expected to introduce a bill that would authorize him to begin negotiating a deal on roads like the turnpike.

Kris Kolluri, the commissioner of the Department of Transportation, said that while Mr. Corzine checks daily to see how his advisers' analysis of a possible lease is going, ''We're engaged in a thoughtful discussion instead of rushing to the market.''

The governor is aware of the potential value of highway leases, which would bring billions of dollars. And some of that cash could be invested until it is needed, earning hundreds of millions of dollars in interest income every year. But the governor is also sensitive to the growing backlash.

For instance, critics worry about agreements that can make it harder for states to build new interchanges and roads to meet future needs. They point to the Transportation Authority in Orange County, Calif., which in 2003 had to buy back the express lanes it leased to a private operator because of a noncompete agreement that prohibited it from improving an adjacent toll-free road.

''We are ill-equipped in government to adequately predict what the world will look like with the time horizons associated with these agreements,'' said Assemblyman John S. Wisniewski, chairman of the Transportation Committee, who, like the governor, is a Democrat, but is a leading opponent of leasing roads.

And environmentalists say that commuters who opted to avoid toll roads would flood some local streets.

The private operators who lease toll roads become responsible for maintenance, so issues like when and how often snow must be plowed must be included in lease agreements.

Not surprisingly, the prospect of higher tolls is unpopular among New Jersey drivers. A recent Fairleigh Dickinson University poll found that 54 percent of those surveyed said that leasing the 148-mile turnpike was a bad idea.

And a Quinnipiac University poll made public on Wednesday showed that a clear majority of respondents were opposed to selling or leasing the turnpike or the Garden State Parkway, even if it would reduce debt and provide property tax relief.

''Garden State motorists have little love for the turnpike or the parkway, but they want to keep these famous -- or infamous -- toll roads in public hands,'' said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. The Atlantic City Expressway could also be leased out.

Mr. Corzine was well aware of such opposition when he acknowledged those concerns in his State of the State address.

''The challenge,'' he said, ''is the risk that we receive too low a price for the assets, we set terms and conditions that do not sufficiently protect the state's or the public's interest or, worst of all, our reinvestment choices squander the proceeds.''

If the state cannot include a ''reasonable and predictable schedule'' for letting the private operator raise prices, he added, no deal will be done. The governor also promised to allocate funds from any deals for debt relief and capital investment, not tax rebates and quick fixes.

Opponents say Mr. Corzine would be passing the buck if he let private operators raise tolls that he cannot or will not raise himself. They also question the way toll increases are often structured in lease agreements with private operators. They say companies are asked to limit increases for a few years but are then free to raise tolls much faster later on -- by which time the politicians who approved the arrangement are out of office.

As drivers in Chicago and Indiana are learning, toll increases are typically linked to growth in consumer prices, or gross domestic product. But those indexes often rise faster than wages do.

In Chicago, many of the drivers who use the Skyway are from out of state, and many of the drivers on the Indiana Toll Road are interstate truckers -- two groups that have less political sway than local drivers. But in New Jersey, the turnpike and the 173-mile-long Garden State Parkway-- the state's main arteries-- are used not just by truckers and out-of-state commuters, but also by hundreds of thousands of state residents every day.

For all the handwringing in New Jersey about such an arrangement, its tolls are less than half the national average. Still, state legislators have been reluctant to raise them or gasoline and motor vehicle taxes.

But Mr. Corzine insists that inaction can no longer be an alternative. The state's debt load, about $30 billion, is roughly equal to its annual operating budget. And five months before the fiscal year ends on June 30, the state is already staring at about a $2 billion deficit.

With numbers this large, Mr. Corzine is expected to try to get the most he can, by seeking to lease the three toll roads as part of one package, which according to Philip Villaluz, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, could bring the state about $30 billion.

But investment funds may have trouble coming up with that much capital. ''Everyone's hyping up this deal,'' said one banker involved in infrastructure deals, ''but no one is asking how it gets done.''