The headline reads “The Feds Just Gave Amtrak $2.4 Billion”.
Why do journalists keep pretending that Washington D.C. is wasting its own money. I wish all the supporters would belly up to the bar and put down their own money.
That headline should read: Taxpayers Just Gave Amtrak $2.4 Billion.
Amtrak Joe did it, you guys. In the waning days of his vice presidency, Joe Biden returned to the station—his home state station in Wilmington, Delaware—to announce the largest Department of Transportation loan in history: $2.45 billion dollars to buck up Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. Joe is so hyped about the future of American rail, he broke out his hanky and wept.
The struggling passenger rail system will spend that money upgrading railroad tracks and rehabbing four stations, including Union Station in Washington, DC and New York’s Penn Station. Amtrak will also seriously update its “high-speed” Acela service. The 28 slick new train sets—arriving in 2021 at the cost of a cool $2 billion—will increase passenger seating by a third, improve food options, and speed up on-board WiFi. They’ll be able to travel at 186 mph (today’s Acela hits 150 mph, while Japan’s standard bullet trains go 200 mph), even though current regulations prevent trains on this stretch of track from going above 160 mph. The trains will also come more frequently: every half hour between DC and New York during peak hours.