It could also boost plans to overhaul the cramped, century-old rail connections linking New York and New Jersey. The funding could support projects from coast to coast to coast: A plan costing only a few million dollars would boost bus service in one smaller community, while another with a multibillion-dollar price tag would spur a massive undertaking to guard cities against rising sea levels. There are tens of billions each for extending passenger rail, replacing lead drinking water pipes and expanding high-speed Internet access. It also includes what administration officials call the biggest investments in transit and clean electricity transmission in U.S.

The new money represents the largest investment in building and fixing bridges since construction of the interstate highway system, which began in the 1950s. “Somewhere along the way, we stopped investing in ourselves, we stopped investing in our people, and we’ve risked losing our edge as a nation,” Biden said Saturday. Public transit systems haven’t kept up with growth or changing travel patterns, leaving Americans ever more dependent on cars to get around. The bridges that are essential connections within urban and rural areas often face costly repairs or replacement. The highways built mid-century as an extensive interstate system are hampered these days by outdated road designs that contribute to crashes and congestion. It is, in many ways, meant to upgrade the nation, replacing infrastructure on the decline that is badly showing its age. The House late Friday passed a $1.2 trillion bipartisan spending package pushed by President Biden and passed by the Senate in August.

Now, after years of failed attempts by presidents of both parties to make transformational investments, Washington has agreed to start building new physical foundations for the nation’s progress.

More than a century later, the tunnel is still in use, an emblem of how the country’s critical infrastructure rests - often precariously - on work carried out generations ago. The engineering feat linking New Jersey and New York City would instantly transform the lives of thousands of commuters. The man running through Manhattan’s Pennsylvania Station in late 1910 hoped to buy a very special ticket - the first sold for a train ready to traverse a new tunnel beneath the Hudson River.

Hudson river truck and trailers