President Joe Biden is heading to Baltimore to visit an aging rail tunnel that's slated to be replaced with help from bipartisan infrastructure legislation that he signed in 2021.
Biden plans to announce labor agreements that are intended to smooth the tunnel’s completion and ensure good wages for union workers, according to the White House. Maryland has also agreed to commit $450 million for construction.
No money has yet been awarded from the federal infrastructure legislation. However, the law signed by Biden includes $24 billion for rail improvements along the Northeast Corridor, and up to $4.7 billion could be provided for the Baltimore tunnel, covering the majority of its cost. Gregg Weaver, 69, got to know Biden while working as a conductor during a 42-year career with Amtrak. When he was working the morning shift on a southbound train, sometimes they would have to hold at Baltimore Penn Station because of trouble ahead at the tunnel.“The tunnel can really complicate the whole thing,” said Weaver, who retired in 2013. “It’s a bottleneck.”
As for Biden, “he rode so much, he probably experienced everything there is to experience,” Weaver said. Baltimore is the first of Biden’s two trips dedicated to infrastructure this week. On Tuesday, he will travel to New York to talk about plans for another new rail tunnel, this one under the Hudson River.Roughly 200,000 people rode through the current tunnel, which was finished 113 years ago, every workday before the COVID-19 pandemic. But because there are only two tracks, any maintenance or problem threatens to severely constrict travel.
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