President Biden needed a win, but then we all did, although what we got isn’t nearly enough. The President’s American Jobs Plan called for expenditures of $2.25 trillion in funding over 10 years. What he got was a $1.2 trillion – which is about the 50% funding gap that the American Society of Civil Engineers has projected over the next decade. Still, the infrastructure bill which did get through Congress with what can be reasonably honestly called bipartisan support, is a major advance over ex-President Trump’s often promised, never realized Infrastructure Week. The funding for Amtrak even revives the badly needed Trans-Hudson tunnel which was proposed by President Obama as part of his economic stimulus package, but was deep sixed by Chris Christie, then governor of New Jersey, apparently on the grounds that Governor Christie was, and is, a Republican.
The investment in infrastructure was and is badly needed, but most Republicans stayed on their side of the fence, placing party politics ahead of the welfare of their own constituents. Ex-president Donald Trump said “Very sad that the RINOs in the House and Senate gave Biden and Democrats a victory on the “Non-Infrastructure” Bill,” Apparently congress is divided into three houses, the Senate which represents the states, the House which represents the people, and the Trumpists who represent Donald Trump. Although investments like the Trans-Hudson Tunnel will join two blue states, many of the provisions of the bill will be important for rural areas that have been neglected in past years. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that the bill is is a “godsend” for his state. The American Society of Civil Engineers, report card gives Kentucky a C-minus.
Some of the money will go to repairs on the Brent Spence bridge which joins Louisville to Cincinnati, which should have those gadgets that sell travel insurance installed at each end, but a great deal of the investment will go to providing broadband internet for rural areas in the eastern part of the state. The bill appropriates $65 billion to provide high speed internet to low population rural areas, low income, and tribal land.
Some $66 billion will go to Amtrak, the passenger rail service which has been badly underfunded since Superstorm Sandy, in 2012. Although Amtrak’s greatest use is in the Boston-NY-Washington corridor, and the appropriation is significantly less than the $80 billion that President Biden requested, it may go beyond repairs to bridges and the roadbed to improving the travel experience and bringing passenger rail to cities that are no longer served by Amtrak. According to the Washington Post “Amtrak and states will compete for funding for new routes, which could allow Amtrak to expand to cities not currently served by passenger rail, such as Las Vegas and Nashville. It also could create new connections, such as a Phoenix-to-Tucson route, and a new corridor in Ohio to connect Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland.” With luck, some of these new routes could include stops at towns along the way, towns that were neglected as train travel gave way to air.
Passenger trains have some advantages over air travel, not the least being point to point service. Commercial air terminals have to be located outside of the cities they serve, while a passenger train can let you off in the place you want to go. Over some routes, train travel is faster than air travel, less expensive, and a good deal more relaxing. Add to this the promise of a return of the dining car and ridership could increase enough to put Amtrak on a sound financial footing while restoring the viability of towns and cities along the way.
The challenge to significant improvements in passenger rail are most likely to come from problems in administration similar to those that have jinxed California’s high speed rail program. For trips under 300 miles, high speed rail would be superior – it might offer Atlanta-Charlotte, Los Angeles-Las Vegas, and Los Angeles-San Francisco. Sadly, California has been stuck with lawsuits, cost overruns, and a land acquisition process that hasn’t worked. Still, Amtrak chief executive William J. Flynn said ““It’s transformative ...” The money allocated for passenger rail “... represents more funds than have been cumulatively invested in Amtrak over the first 50 years of our history.” And it also showed that a bipartisan bill can be possible. There is reason to be hopeful.
Sam Uretsky is a writer and pharmacist living in Louisville, Ky. Email sdu01@outlook.com.
From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2021
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