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As part of his plan to revive a flailing economy, President-elect Barack Obama recently pledged to "Create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s."

His plan would include potentially hundreds of billions of dollars for infrastructure projects. And while economists debate whether this is the most effective form of fiscal stimulus, the mayors of the nation's cities line up at the trough. Schools, roads, rails, pipes and airports? Can we have some more, sir?

Even by Washington standards this would be a once-in-a-lifetime spending spree on projects that would be called pork in less-prodigal times. Cities across the country are ready to pig out.

On Dec. 8, just two days after Obama's pledge for massive infrastructure spending, the U.S. Conference of Mayors released an 803-page report--a wishlist of some 11,391 infrastructure projects they would love to press ahead with.

Talk about a dream scenario. Build all those projects, do it with federal money, say you're rescuing the economy with the spending and, since it's not your local taxpayers' money, don't even stress too much about whether or not the project's cost effective.

Give the money to banks or individuals and they might just horde it. Give it to states or the federal government and it will get stuck in the bureaucracy. But give it to the cities and they'll spend, says Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, the president of the Conference of Mayors. (Not that the governors are sitting idly by--they have $136 billion in plans they'd like to initiate.)

The quest for bionic limbs is yielding stunning results: Prototype prosthetic arms can pick a credit card out of a pocket, scratch an itchy nose and even move based on a human's brain waves.

But while these prototypes are spectacularly more advanced than anything developed before, they also show just how far researchers and engineers have to go before they can approach the sublime handiness of the hand. Our natural limbs will surely always be more flexible, sensitive and dexterous than any copy our limbs can design and build.

But that doesn't mean we should stop trying. University of Michigan materials science and engineering professor David Martin, along with colleagues from several other departments at Michigan, are working together on the basic science that could lead to bionic limbs that would impress even the 1970s TV hero Steve Austin.

They are being funded by a grant from the U.S. Army in the amount of--you guessed it--$6 million. The hope, of course, is to restore some semblance of normal life to soldiers who have lost limbs, like the scores of Iraq veterans victimized by those wretched improvised explosive devices.

The Michigan researchers are working on one of the thorniest problems confronting bionic body parts, their interfaces with human bone, muscle, nerves and skin.

Recent advances in bionic limbs are largely thanks to the U.S. military's research and development agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which is funding a program called "revolutionizing prosthetics" that focuses specifically on arms and hands.

One of DARPA's two main contractors, inventor Dean Kamen's company DEKA, has produced a prototype that has been tested on patients in laboratories and will soon be put into trials in peoples' homes.

Metro and 30 other transit agencies across the country may have to pay billions of dollars to large banks as years-old financing deals unravel, potentially hurting service for millions of bus and train riders, transit officials said yesterday.

The problems are an unexpected consequence of the credit crisis, triggered indirectly by the collapse of American International Group, the insurance giant that U.S. taxpayers recently rescued from bankruptcy, officials said.

AIG had guaranteed deals between transit agencies and banks under which the banks made upfront payments that the agencies agreed to repay over time. But AIG's financial problems have invalidated the company's guarantees, putting the deals in technical default and allowing the banks to ask for all their money at once.

In Metro's case, the regional transit agency could face up to $400 million in payments, the system's chief financial officer, Carol Kissal, said in an interview yesterday. One bank, KBC Group of Belgium, has told Metro that it needs to pay $43 million by next week. Metro officials confirmed the details but declined to name the bank.

Transit agencies have met with the Treasury Department to request federal help. The government could back the deals instead of AIG, or it could change tax policy to help the banks and keep them from demanding payments.

Treasury spokesman Jennifer Zuccarelli declined to comment, except to say, "Treasury is aware of this situation."

Metro officials said they are prepared to fight the demands in court, forestalling an immediate effect. But they say suing one bank could impair the agency's ability to borrow money from other banks for much-needed capital improvements. Metro has said it needs more than $11 billion over 10 years to maintain, expand and improve train, bus and paratransit service. In the Washington region, more than 1.2 million trips are taken on Metrorail and Metrobus on an average weekday.

In addition to Metro, affected agencies include transit systems in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta and Chicago.

The deals in question are vestiges of an elaborate tax-avoidance plan that the IRS has since ended. It involves government agencies, such as Metro, helping private companies to avoid federal taxes.

Profit-making businesses are allowed to shelter income from taxes based on the declining value -- or depreciation -- of such equipment as rail cars. But transit agencies don't pay federal taxes, so they sold their rail cars and other equipment to banks, allowing the banks to shelter income while "their" rail cars depreciated. Then the transit agencies leased the cars back from the banks at a discount that effectively split the value of the tax break with the bank. Metro said it used the money for capital improvements, including buying rail cars.

Metro made 16 such deals, primarily with U.S. banks, between 1997 and 2003, selling 600 rail cars worth more than $1.6 billion and making $100 million.

All of the deals were approved by the Federal Transit Administration. Transit officials say they were encouraged by the government to pursue the tax deals.