(The following story by Raju Chebium appeared on the Courier-Post website on March 14, 2009.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Amtrak will receive $1.3 billion from the new economic stimulus law to fix bridges and stations, repair rail cars, upgrade electrical equipment and take care of other long-standing maintenance issues, Vice President Joe Biden said Friday.
“For too long we’ve failed to make the investments we should’ve been making in Amtrak,” Biden said at Union Station in Washington, with an Amtrak locomotive in the background. “We subsidize our highways and airports more than we subsidize Amtrak. So let’s get something straight here. Amtrak has not been at the trough. Amtrak has been left out.”
The money, meant to erase part of Amtrak’s $5 billion maintenance backlog, is part of the $787 billion stimulus package President Barack Obama signed into law last month.
The list of projects eligible for the funding is being finalized. About 80 projects in the Northeast Corridor are expected to be on that list, claiming a lion’s share of the $1.3 billion.
Biden released a partial list of projects and their funding levels:
$100 million to build a new rail bridge across the Niantic River in Connecticut.
$63 million to replace power-supply equipment in Chester, Pa., to help resolve electrical issues up and down the Northeast Corridor.
$21 million to restore the Wilmington, Del., train station.
Smaller bridge projects in North Jersey could receive more than $1 million each.
Biden, a former U.S. senator from Delaware, used to commute by train from Wilmington, Del., to Washington every day Congress was in session. He said he has taken 7,000 round trips on Amtrak.
Joining Biden at the event Friday were several Amtrak supporters in Congress, including Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., whom Biden praised as “Mr. Amtrak.”
Lautenberg co-authored a bill that calls on Congress to set aside $13 billion for Amtrak over the next five years. Former President George W. Bush signed the bill into law last fall.
Lautenberg said Amtrak would become more valuable once it reduces its maintenance backlog, thanks to the funding in the stimulus bill.
“It’s time that America wakes up to the reality that we have no other choice but to . . . bring (Amtrak) up to current times,” he said.
The stimulus bill isn’t the only source of fresh funds for Amtrak. A $410 billion spending bill that Obama signed into law this month contains $550 million to operhate the railroad and nearly $1 billion for Amtrak’s capital projects.