President Joe Biden — perhaps the nation’s biggest Amtrak fan — is set to promote new federal investments for trains on the heavily trafficked Northeast Corridor.

The Democratic president is headed to Bear, Delaware, on Monday 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 (20 kilometers) from Biden’s home of Wilmington.

His remarks will be held 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.

  • Igloojoe@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    arrow-down
    13
    ·
    1 year ago

    Railroads have always been business owned. So acquiring land is expensive for them. Highways and interstates are government owned. So they just forced owners to accept the appraised value.

    • Redscare867@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      1 year ago

      And for whatever reason you think we couldn’t do literally the exact same thing we did with highways to build nationalized rail?

      • Igloojoe@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I wish we did. It seems logical that railroads should be government run transit option.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        We could call it, let’s see, hmmm …. America’s Track? I wish there was a way to shorten that …. AmeriTrack? … AmRail?

        • Redscare867@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          You might be on to something, but I gotta say this all sounds vaguely familiar for some reason 🤔

    • grue@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      1 year ago

      Do you have even the slightest idea how much land we already have for railroads that already existed but have been abandoned?

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      No they aren’t. Amtrak is literally a publicly owned company. Basically all passenger rail in the United States is Amtrak in the modern era