Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Number Thirteen Line, a monthly blog about transportation in New York and around the world by "Gridlock Sam" Schwartz and Annie Weinstock. This month’s topic: The Stimulus Package and its impact on transportation.

Two of the Big Three on transportation and infrastructure reform in America, Gov. Ed Rendell, Democrat of Pennsylvania, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican of California (they make up the group, Building America's Future, along with Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Independent of New York City), in a conversation on that very same subject -- calling for a reprioritization of infrastructure development and planning throughout the country. Not only will it modernize infrastructure, they say, bringing it into the 21st century, but it will also quicken economic recovery. By that standard, America is already a decade behind.

A breakdown of provisions and funding requirements for mass transit in The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Established by the Obama Administration, Recovery.gov will track the $787 billion from the economic stimulus bill with the purpose of holding the federal government accountable with the public's money. This increased transparency is intended to enable the tax-payer to follow where the money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is going.

As President Barack Obama signed the stimulus bill in Denver on Tuesday, it released the biggest influx of federal dollars since the Great Society program of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Unlike LBJ, President Obama – working with less of a Democratic majority – ultimately had to make significant concessions to Congressional moderates and Republicans to pass the bill.

Blueprint America correspondent Rick Karr talks with The Take Away on public radio about the operating budget shortfall common to most of America’s mass transit systems, and if Congress’ stimulus plan will be able to help.

A look at America's top mass transit systems - from budget deficits to finding new revenue sources to how agencies will manage both. Also, find out how each agency plans to use federal funds from the economic stimulus.

President Barack Obama's stimulus money is about to be distributed, but will it be spent in the way it is intended? One alarming example: Mass transit. Cities and states, strapped for money, are cutting back on mass transit even as it becomes more popular with Americans. At the same time, President Obama is calling for increased mass transit as a necessary step toward energy independence. Blueprint America -- with NOW on PBS -- reports from North Carolina to see what the future holds for the country's mass transit systems in these financial times.

What has often been referenced as a new New Deal, similar to initiatives instituted during the Great Depression, the following is a breakdown of federal funds from Congress' economic stimulus devoted to projects or spending that is related to or will affect infrastructure in the U.S.

What is almost gone from the stimulus discussion now is infrastructure. After months of talk of a new New Deal and putting people back to work with public works spending while, at the same time, building a new America, the focus of the stimulus bill has been shifted to tax breaks for home builders, new-car buyers and manufacturers, spending cuts for state governments, and a limit to executive bonus pay.

As the recovery plan was debated in Congress, the House and Senate had seemingly similar but, at the same time, different ideas on how stimulus money should fund transportation projects.