A national PBS documentary will point to Portland as one of three cities that exemplify how the nation can use transportation infrastructure to fight sprawl, preserve the environment and promote mass transit.

"Blueprint America: Road to the Future" airs Wednesday at 8 p.m. on public broadcasting stations nationwide and on Oregon Public Broadcasting in the Portland area.It uses Denver, New York and Portland - and their nearby suburbs - as examples of how national policies on transportation can shape cities.

Producers hope the show and related segments other PBS programs will influence upcoming debates on a new multi-year federal transportation bill and stimulus spending.

"How we build ultimately will determine how we live and the quality of life we enjoy," said Neal Shapiro, chief executive officer of WNET.ORG. "For many years, cities have been neglected, and in many cases harmed, by government policies that favored sprawl over density."

The show makes a pitch for more federal money for mass transit and bicycling and less for new highways, quoting well-known Portlanders -- U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Metro Council President David Bragdon, Portland Mayor Sam Adams, urban planning professor Ethan Seltzer and bike blogger Jonathan Maus -- at length on big policy questions. In a copy of the film distributed to The Oregonian, car commuters' desires for more lanes, more speed and less traffic are treated as antiquated ideals, exemplified in snippets of video from the 1950s and 60s.

But reporter Miles O'Brien also features landowners frustrated by Portland-area growth restrictions and a Denver-area family that seems content with a suburban lifestyle. And he explains the continued popularity of car-friendly policies, citing as an example the defeat of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to charge tolls on cars entering the city to boost mass transit funding.

The show comes after a May 10 documentary, "Making Sense of Place," examined Portland's growth management policies.

-- Dylan Rivera; dylanrivera@news.oregonian.com