President Biden’s trillion-dollar US employment plan is still chugging through Congress with billions in funding to expand intercity passenger transport. If a bill is signed, $ 66 billion of it will go to Amtrak “to fix Amtrak’s maintenance backlog,” along with other upgrades, according to the New York Times.
In an interview with the International Railway Journal, an industry audience, on Sept. 14, Amtrak President and CEO William Flynn outlined additional priorities for the railroad, including expanding connections to San Antonio and throughout the “Texas Triangle”.
In March, the comprehensive Amtrak Connects US plan, which coincided with Biden’s infrastructure contract, was released, and part of it included upgrading the Northeast Corridor, the line between Washington, DC and Boston, on which trains use 100-year-old tunnels and bridges Places (eek).
An Amtrak train chugged past Sunset Depot in 1989 before the station was renovated.Express news file photo
However, in his interview, Flynn said that Amtrak is also prioritizing areas that have seen booming population growth over the past few decades, including adding new services to the Texas Triangle that connects San Antonio with Austin, Dallas and Houston. It also hopes to increase service on the Texas Eagle, the daily train that connects San Antonio to Chicago, the magazine reports.
“Our service today looks very much like it did in 1971,” he told IRJ. “There is a huge underserved population and that is really the underlying logic of Amtrak Connects US.
Although federal law passed the Senate with bipartisan support, it has yet to reach the president’s desk to go into effect. Still, the CEO is optimistic that Amtrak’s windfall will come.
“It’s more money than Amtrak has ever received in our 50-year history,” says Flynn. “We’re not celebrating yet; There is a way to go. But I think we would have been more careful a month ago. ”
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