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.
Why is decent rail service, like basic medical care, a contentious issue in the U.S.? Even this article casts shade by saying ‘Bear is located about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from Biden’s home of Wilmington.’ As if having access to public transportation is some kind of left wing elite privelege that no one else can utilize.
Because of capitalism and the US oil and car industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
Car companies successfully got out ahead of Adam Something and NJB viewers to conspiricize 15 minute cities
One part of the problem is that Congress has a rural bias, so there are a lot of rural Congresspersons who don’t see the benefit of better rail service so they won’t vote for it.
Because of Republicans.
America is about twice the size of all of Europe. Railroads were controlled by monopoly rich people. Once America became more industrialized, planes became a better cargo transit option. That and the interstate system made trucks an even better economical option. Railroads were not an option as they were expensive and land intensive(which also meant more money for acquiring land)
For medical care, the US government actually spends a bunch on healthcare on par with most other countries. Just that a majority of the monet will go to a bloated medical company into a billionair’s pocket before any of it applies to an individual.
So, extreme capitalism ruined both. Yet we have politicians and people who think we should push further towards a capitalistic way of running things…
Railroads are land intensive but somehow 27 lane highways aren’t? Also wait until you find out how expensive it is to maintain all of those highways…
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.
And for whatever reason you think we couldn’t do literally the exact same thing we did with highways to build nationalized rail?
I wish we did. It seems logical that railroads should be government run transit option.
California is as densely populated as Spain, which has an excellent high speed rail network, the northeastern US has densities comparable with Central Europe and the rest of the East coast is well within the ranges seen in western Europe.
the u.s. spends up to twice as much on health care, and doesn’t cover ‘as much’ or ‘as many’, as those other nations that have nationalized or ‘socialized’ health care programs.
US has an incredible number of railroads. They are freight-only.
The biggest Amtrak fan? Maybe he can stop fucking them over by refusing to enforce existing law to give right-of-way preference to passenger rail.
If he did that then warren buffet might only earn an extra billion instead of the 1.2 billion he was hoping for. The horror!
He doesn’t seem to be a big fan of commercial rail either as the federal government stepped in to quash workers striking over lax safety shortly before that train derailed and dumped toxic waste all over a city in Ohio.
Awesome. The north east corridor should have more trains.
More trains, faster trains, fewer interruptions of service. This is the closest we have to good train service, the most in demand, the most useful. We’ll use everything we can get, rather than bitch and moan
This is good. Maybe this will lead to the new Acela finally entering service.
They were supposed to enter service in 2021, but they have been in storage all over the north east until Alstom (the manufacturer) is able to fix the hydraulic, and computer issues, along with the outdated infrastructure on the corridor.
I have 2 brand new Acela train sets sitting in the freight yard of my home town. They’ve been there for over 2 months now. I like seeing them, but, they should be running by now.
Puffy vest under suit jacket is my favourite new look.
YAY trains!
Indeed, yay trains, and I unironically also like that look. In the thumbnail I thought it was a sweater at first. It says I’m the President, but I’m here to work. Rail–any rail–would be a significant improvement in American infrastructure in so many places. I don’t live anywhere near the NE, but I know it has to succeed for there to be hope for the rest of us in my lifetime.
Canada, with its insane metro sprawls and vastly distributed rural and northern populations, is optimistic about good precedents being set as well.
That’s a coat.
Woah are we getting some PR marketing on Lemmy for politicians lol that was fast
(OK that’s just in reference to “perhaps the nation’s biggest amtrak fan!” Just lol)
To be fair, “Amtrak Joe” sounds a hell of a lot better than “genocide Joe”
Huh
I hope they actually start refurbishing the rails themselves soon, Trains keep getting bigger and heavier but lines stay the same. Another huge derailment happened a few days ago, right?
I kinda feel like the highly profitable railroads should be forced to pay for their own upgrades. Especially since they keep making trains bigger to increase their profits.
That’s kind of dumb, no offence, because if companies are in charge then they’ll intentionally do a bare minimum cut corners hack job. Just tax them and other (arguably worse) industries and use the tax revenue to make a proper improved rail system.
You may actually have a good idea there. I hadn’t even considered that option.
Removed by mod
Yes. Taxpayer money to for-profit corporations that have been posting record profits for years!
‘based’ Joe! Lol.
Rubes.
Removed by mod
How much do their executives get paid?
Profit can easily be manipulated by just raising salaries. All of a sudden its a business expense and not profit.
But surely you understand this, right? Clown?
Removed by mod
Okay. Would you rather talk about their overpaid executives?
You’re just trying to avoid admitting that they have the money for these projects, but it’s being funneled to a few people who don’t do any actual work.
Removed by mod
I’m not going to do your research for you.
If you want to believe that they’re just scraping by and need taxpayer handouts to expand, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
I’ve love it, but want way more than 16b. The entire west needs Acelas or better! And new rail lines for passenger rail in places like CO and the cascadia area.
Why aren’t these being paid for with the profits from the business?
This is good. Maybe this will lead to the new Acela finally entering service.
They were supposed to enter service in 2021, but they have been in storage all over the north east until Alstom (the manufacturer) is able to fix the hydraulic, and computer issues, along with the outdated infrastructure on the corridor.
I have 2 brand new Acela train sets sitting in the freight yard of my home town. They’ve been there for over 2 months now. I like seeing them, but, they should be running by now.
Yo where that slime mold map at?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_railroad_labor_dispute
“Of the railways involved in the dispute, six bargained together, forming the National Carriers Conference Committee. These six were Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, CSX, BNSF, Kansas City Southern, and Canadian National. Amtrak and Canadian Pacific bargained separately.”
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-railroad-strike-2022-12-02/
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/02/1140265413/rail-workers-biden-unions-freight-railroads-averted-strike
“But at this critical moment for our economy, in the holiday season, we cannot let our strongly held conviction for better outcomes for workers deny workers the benefits of the bargain they reached, and hurl this nation into a devastating rail freight shutdown.”
sounds like someone is protecting their railroad bribes
Terrible plan. from an expert in rails: https://mastodon.social/users/Alon/statuses/111363609554111161
Expert? He says that those are ‘things that go against future high-speed rail’. There’s no future high-speed rail in USA. Not unless he’s talking about year 5000. Stopping investment because it goes against projects that USA is simply unable to build doesn’t make much sense.
Spending way too much money on projects is why we can’t build. The best thing to do is starve the beasts making money of of way too expensive projects. If the return on investment isn’t good then the smart thing to do is not invest. If Biden wants to support rail (high speed or otherwise) he needs to reform the systems that make costs too high, not keep funding them.
What makes the cost too high?
deleted by creator
Alon who I linked to has done a lot of study on that. I suggest you follow them and their studies.
I don’t have a lot of time to dig through someone’s history, so if you could link directly, that would be great. But thanks.
I do agree that lowering useless governmental barriers to rail would be good for rail, but I also think increased funding would be good.
https://pedestrianobservations.com/ is their blog with many articles over more than a decade. https://transitcosts.com/ is their project website (they works for a university studying transit)
