Massive undertakings are best carried out, as our friend Shakespeare advised, with one fell swoop, with one killing blow; quick, clean and certain.

Gov. King’s massive undertaking — a $180 million plan to rebuild the state’s dilapidated, inefficient and altogether dreadful prison system — has none of those admirable qualities. It’s protracted, rather messy and far from a sure thing. It’s also realistic.

It starts with using $40 million of the state’s mounting surplus (now in the neighborhood of $300 million) to fix what’s most broken — the Maine Youth Center. There can be no more pressing need than this South Portland accumulation of substandard buildings and shamefully understaffed education and counseling programs. And if the rehab help keeps today’s troubled teen from becoming tomorrow’s adult menace to society, there can be no better way to invest a relatively small portion of the state’s cash.

Next comes the big piece of this piecemeal approach — $76 million to build a replacement for the decrepit Maine State Prison at Thomaston in nearby Warren and to add a women’s lockup at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham. A novel lease-purchase agreement will carry out the construction, to be paid back over 20 years from the savings realized through more efficient operations.

Finally, roughly $53 million will be borrowed through bonding to add more beds at Windham and to build a minimum-security facility in Washington County.

This last, most conventional, component seems to be raising the most concerns. Many legislators, apparently unfamiliar with the concept of representative democracy, are wondering why the first two steps, costing $112 million, are being done in a way that does not require direct voter approval. Residents Downeast, who nearly lost their Bucks Harbor prison and more than 70 badly needed jobs in an earlier incarnation of this redesign, are wondering why their step is the only one relying upon the whim of the public.

Those are good questions with good answers. Maine voters have not been kind to prison bond issues, turning them down every chance they get. That’s entirely reasonable — it costs more than $40 million a year just to run the crummy prisons Maine has. After spending so much on three hots and a cot for the state’s most undesirable residents, law-abiding taxpayers have a right to loathe the thought of doing more.

By using cash on hand and a pay-from-savings arrangement for steps one and two, the prison system gets a chance to prove to voters that there can be a return on this investment. If a renovated juvenile system turns kids away from a life of crime, if better education, training and treatment programs stop the revolving door on the adult side, a bond issue for the last step stands a much better chance at the polls.

Washington County worries that Bucks Harbor will be closed and the building program will cease after steps one and two, leaving them out. The suspicion is understandable — stiff a region several hundred times with neglect and the folks therein are bound to be wary. But Corrections Commissioner Martin Magnuson swears that won’t happen. “Washington County will not be hung out to dry,” he said Wednesday. “(Bucks Harbor) will not be closed until the new facility is built.” That’s a pretty unequivocal statement and it comes from a commissioner not known for mincing words.

The $180 million in the governor’s plan is a lot of money, but it pretty much reflects the dreadfulness of the state prison system. The old way — warehousing prisoners and trying to borrow a fix — hasn’t worked. It’s time to try something new. And realistic. Even if it takes a few swoops.