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This Week on NOW

Driven to Despair

With gas prices spiking and home values crumbling, the American dream of commuting to work from the fringes of suburbia has become an American nightmare. Many are facing a hard choice: Paying for gas or paying the mortgage. How did it come to this? It's not just about America's financial crisis; it's also about big problems with our national infrastructure. Overstressed highways and too few public transportation options are wreaking havoc on people's lives and hitting the brakes on our already-stretched economy. NOW on PBS takes a close-up look at our inadequate transportation network and visits some people paying a high price -- in both dollars and quality of life -- just to get to work. Do we have the means to modernize both our infrastructure and our lifestyles?

This is the first installment in "Blueprint America," a year-long, PBS-wide series focusing on the nation's infrastructure. "Blueprint America" is an initiative of Thirteen/WNET.