If the federal government wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on transportation and other infrastructure projects to resuscitate America's economy, Texas is ready to oblige.

Officials in Austin and North Texas have prepared lists of hundreds of transportation projects that could be under construction within months, if only Congress would send a big check.

"If they are going to hand out this kind of money, we are sure not going to walk away from it," said Texas Transportation Commission member Ted Houghton of El Paso. "Not if 49 other states are lining up for the money. ... Whether it's the right thing to do, that is an entirely different question."

But even as officials at every level have begun compiling wish lists for what California Sen. Barbara Boxer said Monday could be a $1 trillion spending program, few details of the stimulus effort have emerged other than its eye-popping price tag and a consensus that it should be spent quickly.

And with key details still in flux, some critics worry that the once-in-a-lifetime spending plan will be wasted if it is spent only on ready-to-go projects. Most of the projects on the lists submitted by Texas are small ones, ranging from paving jobs to overpass repairs and highway widening.

Missing, for the most part, are long-range projects that experts say would do far more to solve Texas' and America's transportation problems, such as big urban transit expansions, comprehensive passenger rail service that could extend beyond the Northeast, or costly relief for backed-up freight corridors that have clogged highways in states like Texas.

"We're playing the cards that are being dealt us," said Coby Chase, top governmental affairs official at TxDOT. "This may or may not be the highest and best use of these transportation dollars, but at this time, that's not the point of the money. The package is aimed at stimulating the economy."

U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, in an interview last week, said spending money on transportation makes sense, but she said doing so as part of a quick-acting stimulus package could backfire.

"The kinds of projects that are ready to go aren't the ones that have the most strategic value," she said. "And while even those quick projects will create some jobs, the impact may be less than some expect. They won't bring the kind of long-term return more strategic spending would have."

Details sketchy

While Ms. Boxer said many details will probably remain secret until President-elect Barack Obama addresses the stimulus plan again, most likely just before or during his inaugural address, some rough outlines of the legislation have emerged.

For starters, Ms. Boxer, chairwoman of the Senate Public Works Committee, said the total spending will probably be between $500 billion and $1 trillion. States will be required to spend the money quickly and on a lot more than just transportation projects.

In an interview last week, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota, Ms. Boxer's House counterpart, said the stimulus package could also include money for food stamps or other aid to the poor. Ms. Boxer said Monday that she'll insist on focusing some of the funds on energy infrastructure, and Mr. Obama singled out over the weekend a commitment to create so-called green jobs.

"As far as how exactly this is going to work, I can't give you any insight into that right now," Ms. Boxer said. "But I do believe the money will flow to the states, which already have lists of projects ready to go. That's how we have done it in the past."

How much each state will get isn't certain yet. Ms. Boxer, for instance, wants states whose economies are in the worst shape to get more. With its comparatively strong economy, Texas would get less. But the legislation will start in the House, and Mr. Oberstar's aide said last week that the plan will begin with the assumption that the money will be divided by the same formula that Congress usually uses for transportation funds. If so, Texas would get about $7.9 billion for every $100 billion in the overall transportation spending component.

Spending wisely

Texas Transportation Commission member Bill Meadows of Fort Worth said $8 billion could go a long way toward helping Texas meet significant infrastructure needs.

"The nation needs the money badly," he said. "But this is one of those times when it would be a terrible mistake to be reactionary and just throw a bunch of projects on a piece of paper and fire them up to Washington. That's not the best thing for Texas or for America."

Instead, he said, state transportation officials need to reach out to transit leaders in Texas' biggest cities and see what projects they need that ordinarily don't qualify for TxDOT funding. "What we need to do is prepare a thoughtful list of projects for funding that is based on criteria that are themselves thoughtful."

Texas is barred by its constitution from using gas taxes for transit, and federal funds for those projects usually require a 50 percent local match. The stimulus money, on the other hand, will have no such restrictions and require no match. That could make investing in DART or The T wise, he said, even if those projects would take longer than the 90 days to get started.

Experts who have been calling for big investments in transportation for years agree.

David Goldberg of the Transformation for America advocacy group in Washington said Monday that states should fix broken assets first, then think big about how to spend whatever funds are left over.

"Eighty percent of America lives in metro areas, and all of them have some real serious traffic issues," he said. "Building new roads alone just gives the illusion that you are doing something about the worsening traffic."