The White House on Wednesday fleshed out the plans President Obama announced in the State of the Union address to repair the nation’s ailing infrastructure.

A summary of the plan, which Mr. Obama discussed in interviews, was obtained by The New York Times. The draft sounds three major themes that Mr. Obama has discussed since he was first a candidate for the presidency, but with initiatives intended to engage in work that minimizes the need for Congressional approval and which can capitalize on private investment to help start projects.

The first element of the plan is a “fix it first” policy that calls for investing $50 billion in transportation infrastructure, subject to Congressional approval. Fully $40 billion of that amount would be directed to work on the highways, bridges, transit systems and airports “most in need of repair,” according to the document.

There are 70,000 bridges classified as “structurally deficient” in the United States, and while that does not mean that all of them are unsafe, it does suggest an urgency in the kinds of repairs that could keep them from becoming unsafe. The White House estimates that 80 percent of those bridges could be brought up to date under the program.