President Joe Biden’s love of passenger rail is well-documented — before becoming known as POTUS, he was known in some circles as “Amtrak Joe” for his love of taking the national passenger railroad. It’s estimated that, during his days in the Senate, he took about 8,000 round trips between Delaware and D.C.
He professed his love for trains again Friday, at an event celebrating his administration's plans to invest more than $8.2 billion in new funding for 10 rail projects across the country — including the country’s first two “world class” high-speed rail projects.
"I've ridden on rail probably more than all of you combined," Biden told the members of Las Vegas' Carpenters Local Union 1977. "I lived 150 miles from Washington and I took a train every single day" to see his family in Delaware, he said. "I did it for my family, but I came to see how train and travel opens enormous possibilities for the nation. Rail connects jobs and opportunities for people, it gets goods to market, traffic off the streets and travelers on the move."
Biden recalled a campaign promise to bring "world-class high-speed rail worthy of the United States of America" to the nation, putting rail systems in line with celebrated systems across the globe.
“Any American who has traveled to other developed countries has likely seen how differently countries in places like Europe and East Asia approach passenger rail, and marveled at how easy and affordable it is for people to travel by rail in those other countries, returning home to wonder why Americans can't have that too,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told reporters earlier in the week. “Under President Biden's leadership, we're now making the largest investment in passenger rail since Amtrak was created in the first place.”
Projects include up to $3 billion for the 218-mile Brightline West high-speed rail project between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., which is expected to result in two-hour trips; up to $3.07 billion to develop the long-awaited California Inaugural High-Speed Rail Service Project in the state’s Central Valley between Bakersfield and Merced, improving connections between Northern California and Southern California; expanding capacity in Chicago Union Station; upgrades to projects in Virginia, North Carolina and Washington, D.C.; and improvements to corridors in Pennsylvania, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana and Alaska.
The White House previously announced funding for the Vegas to SoCal line on Tuesday, ahead of the larger package announcement.
The Vegas to Southern California high-speed line, Biden said, will be completed by 2028, in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics, to be hosted by Los Angeles.
The Biden administration also announced its Corridor ID Program, a new planning framework to upgrade rail corridors across the country.
“What we're doing is creating a pipeline for promising intercity passenger rail projects to help them get ready for future investment,” Buttigieg said. “These are still projects that are often in early planning stages, are on the drawing board, but represent compelling visions for the future.”
The two high-speed rail projects are clearly the crown jewels of Friday’s announcement, but California’s Central Valley high-speed rail project has long been beset by delays and cost overruns.
Buttigieg told reporters that, in order for this grant to happen, the project had to face “an extraordinary level of scrutiny.”
“For all of these projects, we would not be funding them if we didn’t believe that they can deliver. But we’re going to be staying very closely engaged to make sure that they can stay on time, on task and on budget,” he said.
The complete list of projects is expected to have multiple benefits: reducing commuting times, increasing accessibility, increasing safety along tracks and at crossings, making infrastructure more resilient and major environmental benefits. The high-speed rail from Las Vegas to Southern California is expected to take travelers from one leg to the other in just over two hours, pulling scores of cars off the road and producing sizable economic benefits.
"The rail project reduces carbon emissions — it's the same as taking 3 million vehicles off the highway," Biden said. "The new rail line will transport 11 million passengers a year — that means more visitors, more business in Las Vegas, more money. And if a casino worker wants to take their kid to California for the weekend, they can have breakfast here in Las Vegas and lunch in L.A."
But Biden's speech to the Las Vegas carpenters was most exuberant about what he called the best part: "Jobs — union jobs!"
"Thirty-five thousand jobs during the construction phase. Ten thousand jobs in the building trades — carpenters, electricians, ironworkers...jobs and jobs beyond," he said, promising that the completed line would also be operated by union workers.
Biden also took a shot at the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and his predecessor in the White House, Donald Trump.
"This project stands in stark contrast to my predecessor that always talked about 'infrastructure week,' for years and years. But it failed. He failed," Biden said. "Trump just talks the talk, we walk the walk. He likes to say America is a failing nation — frankly, I don't know what the hell he's talking about. I see shovels in the ground, cranes in the sky and people working hard, rebuilding America together."
At the heart of the administration's message, coming from both Biden and his transportation secretary, is the idea that this project will raise the standard of American rail travel back to world-class levels.
“If you’ve ever seen the standard of passenger rail service in Japan or Germany — or for that matter, Spain or Italy — and come home and said, why can’t we have these nice things? This is the beginning of the answer to that. Help is on the way,” Buttigieg said. “Within a few years, you're going to see some real noticeable improvements and some very exciting things before the end of this decade.”