WASHINGTON — From the moment President Trump made his 2016 campaign pledge to start a $1 trillion effort to rebuild the United States’ roads and bridges, infrastructure has become a constant motif of his presidency: his unfulfilled boasts about cutting big bipartisan deals, his quest for distractions from disastrous news cycles and his inability to tackle the nation’s pressing issues.

Democrats have called for a huge infrastructure deal, as well, only to see their hopes for a compromise with Mr. Trump undermined amid squabbling about how to pay for it and derailed by the president’s anger at their investigations of his policies and conduct.

Over the past three years, as the White House’s carefully laid plans for infrastructure-related events have repeatedly been thwarted or overshadowed by the scandal of the day, the phrase “Infrastructure Week” has become something of a joke and a metaphor for any well-intentioned proposal doomed to go nowhere.

But with growing consensus that the coronavirus pandemic could jump-start bipartisan efforts to enact a multitrillion-dollar infrastructure plan to create thousands of jobs, the Trump administration and Congress appear to be taking the issue seriously again.