What to Know
- President Joe Biden is promoting new cash for Amtrak.
- Biden is in Bear, Delaware, on Monday announcing more than $16 billion in new funding that will go toward 25 passenger rail projects between Boston and Washington.
- The White House says investments will help trains run faster, cut delays and create union jobs. And the money comes from Biden's bipartisan infrastructure law, which is one of several legislative accomplishments he will tout during his reelection campaign.
President Joe Biden — perhaps the nation's biggest Amtrak fan — is promoting new federal investments for trains on the heavily trafficked Northeast Corridor.
The president visited Bear, Delaware, to announce more than $16 billion in new funding that will go toward 25 passenger rail projects between Boston and Washington, the White House says. Bear is located about 12 miles from Biden's home of Wilmington.
The first-term Democrat's remarks took place at the Amtrak Bear Maintenance Shops, where trains are maintained and repaired. The investments, the White House says, will help trains run faster, cut delays and create union jobs.
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The money comes from the roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law that Biden signed nearly two years ago, one of several legislative achievements that the president is touting as he gears up for his reelection bid. From the law, Amtrak will get about $66 billion in new investments, according to the White House.
During his 36 years as a U.S. senator, Biden traveled back and forth from Wilmington to Washington daily. The president has said that he has logged more than 1 million miles on Amtrak during his public service career.
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“Amtrak wasn’t just a way to get home to family,” Biden said at an infrastructure event in Baltimore earlier this year. “The conductors, the engineers — they literally became my family.”
There are about 800,000 trips daily on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, the White House says, which makes it the busiest rail corridor in the United States.
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