WASHINGTON (AP) — After years of procrastination, the White House and Congress have suddenly boosted a long-term plan to improve the nation's roads, bridges and transit systems to the top of the political agenda.

This week the House and Senate are set to take up vastly different bills providing a blueprint for shoring up the nation's aging transportation system. Lawmakers are driven in part by a desire to show voters a major accomplishment in an election year when regard for Congress is at rock bottom. They are pitching the bills as jobs generators, although it may be more accurate to say they preserve jobs that might otherwise be lost if Congress doesn't find a way to keep highway and transit programs solvent.

President Barack Obama chimed in Monday with his own plan to spend nearly half a trillion dollars over six years on transportation infrastructure. But the president's plan is so much grander than anything Congress is likely to go along with that the administration has swung its weight behind the Senate bill, a bipartisan plan that more modestly proposes to spend $109 billion over less than two years.