The Biden administration announced Monday that it has awarded more than $1.4 billion to projects that improve railway safety and boost capacity, with much of the money coming from the 2021 infrastructure law.
“These projects will make American rail safer, more reliable, and more resilient, delivering tangible benefits to dozens of communities where railroads are located, and strengthening supply chains for the entire country,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement.
The money is funding 70 projects in 35 states and Washington, D.C. Railroad safety has become a key concern nationwide ever since a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed and caught fire in East Palestine, Ohio, in February. President Joe Biden has ordered federal agencies to hold the train’s operator Norfolk Southern accountable for the crash, but a package of proposed rail safety reforms has stalled in the Senate where the bill is still awaiting a vote. The White House is also saying that a possible government shutdown because of House Republicans would undermine railway safety.
The projects include track upgrades and bridge repairs, in addition to improving the connectivity among railways and making routes less vulnerable to extreme weather.
It’s a good start, now let’s keep that momentum with some new rail lines. Maybe even passenger rail. Come on.
Maybe even some high speed rails! Acela has been a huge success in the Northeast, but we need it to become actual high speed and there are so many other places that could benefit from similar service.
Acela is absolutely awful. You’re spending anywhere from $100-300 more to get to DC from NYC like 20 minutes faster.
The only actual high speed portion of Acela is in MA, and the time savings from Boston to NYC is a bit more substantial, accordingly.
I managed to snag a $70 round trip ticket from DC to Boston, months in advance, during 2021. Only time I’ll probably ever justify taking it. As a nerd that likes trains, it was fun.
Can we get a rail that isn’t absurdly expensive so that only old people will take it for Olde time trainy fun, and that does not have freight share the tracks and take priority? Oh and if it rains, maybe the tracks are under water… And actual useful internet, and decent food options?
I would dearly love to take a train across the country in a sleeper car, but the price is insane.
It’s also super frustrating living in the Northeast, because though we do have halfway decent Amtrak service, it’s priced so high that it’s often cheaper to fly from Boston to NYC. This is because the NE corridor (basically BOS to WAS) is the only part of the entire network that’s reliably profitable, so the ticket prices I pay directly subsidize Amtrak service for the entire rest of the country.
What’s not fun about it? I admit most of my idea of the romance of crossing the country on a train is from 1930s and 1940s movies, so I’m sure things are quite different.
Which would be fine if it didn’t take two days and had an actual schedule.
North America is also the continent of commuter trains which drive to the city from 7 to 8:30, then back from 5:30 to 7, with no trains in between and who cares if you want to stay in the city after work for a bit and shop for model planes and would like to take a train back at 9.
Noone gets used to just using the train with that kind of service quality, noone will actually get rid of their car. Also supermarket within biking distance is the bare minimum when it comes to everyday needs… walking distance would be better but isn’t realistic in super low density suburbia. Are Americans capable to mentally conceptualise a suburban supermarket without car parking? Slap a cafe and restaurant on there with outside seating (weather permitting, of course), as well as a handful of 4-5 storey apartment buildings to get some density to be able to justify a tram stop and small primary school and you have something going.
For freight - awesome. But as long as Amtrak is “twice the price of flying, and five times as long!” it’s never going to be able to compete.
If we nationalized freight rail, Amtrak wouldn’t have to operate around the caprice of freight rail companies.
Of course, nationalizing freight rail would be opposed by freight companies, and anything that makes rail travel tolerable would be fiercely opposed by airlines and car companies.
As a resident of the northeast: this is nice on the face of it, but that’s a comically small amount of money to address a decades-long failure to invest in mass transit infrastructure.
We give billions of taxpayer money each year to build and maintain roadways for cars, while letting rail companies mostly depend on profits to do so with rail. It is no wonder which has won.
