When the stimulus bill was passed last February, it sent billions of dollars to the nation's mass-transit agencies. Still, the money was purposed for only new equipment and construction -- nothing to operate the systems, even as many are cutting service, laying off workers or raising fares.

The Monday Metro accident in Washington, D.C., when a train car rear-ended another killing nine people, involved some of the oldest cars in the city’s young subway system. The cars had already been said to have vulnerabilities. Washington, however, is not the exception for using equipment that is outdated.

Though the cause of the accident is still speculated, especially following two recent rail accidents nationally in the past year, officials said today the Metro train car involved was two months past due for scheduled maintenance on its brakes, and the car was an older model that federal officials had recommended be replaced because of concerns about its safety in a crash.

Chairman Jim Oberstar (D., MN) and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee released the full 775-page Transportation Bill text.

As the sage Yogi Berra once said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!” When it comes to financing transportation infrastructure, our nation has come to a fork in the road and we must take action.

Expiring on October 1, the law authorizing federal highway and transit programs was expected to be renewed sometime this legislative session. This past Wednesday, however, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asked for an 18 month extension of the transportation law that would delay the planned reauthorization past the 2010 congressional midterm elections.

Blueprint America correspondent Rick Karr on the impact of freight moving through communities.

A roundup of links to local stories of national importance to the state of America's infrastructure.

A look back at the New Deal, and its projects that made America.

President Barack Obama has called for the creation of a National Infrastructure Bank. The intention: To create a structure so public works projects could be, according to the President while campaigning last year, “determined not by politics, but by what will maximize our safety and homeland security; what will keep our environment clean and our economy strong.” Still, it is unclear how a National Infrastructure Bank would function -- or even be established.

Blueprint America looks at the possibility of the Bank -- both the design and implementation of -- in interviews with Felix Rohatyn, author of Bold Endeavors: How our government built America, and why it must rebuild now, and Stan Hazelroth, Executive Director of the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank. Additionally, a breakdown of the progress of the National Infrastructure Bank so far.

Blueprint America: Public Works is an effort by 18 public television stations across the country that concentrates on the state of their local infrastructure. Communities -- big and small, urban and rural -- are, for the first time, collectively rethinking what it takes to make a place livable. PBS stations are producing radio and television segments, hosting discussions between policy makers and their communities, and offering further content online, all as a part of Blueprint America.