During a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, Biden announced a series of federally funded rail upgrades that will put the US “back on track to having the fastest, safest, greenest rail system in the world.”
"You have no idea how happy this makes me," AFP quoted Mr. Biden as saying at an event in Las Vegas on December 8.
Mr. Biden speaks in Las Vegas on December 8.
Mr. Biden is known for his love of trains and used to travel between his home state of Delaware and Washington DC as a senator, to the point that he was nicknamed "Amtrak Joe" (Amtrak is the US national railway transportation company).
The Biden administration hopes to complete a high-speed rail line from Las Vegas to Los Angeles by 2028. The project is designed to reduce travel time between the two cities from the current five hours by road to two hours and 40 minutes by rail. It also serves the broader U.S. ambition of doubling rail passenger numbers by 2040.
Mr Biden highlighted the fact that China, the world's second-largest economy, boasts trains that travel at speeds of up to 350 km/h.
The leader also took the opportunity to criticize his predecessor Donald Trump for failing to improve US infrastructure during his presidency (2017-2021). "He likes to say America is a failed state. Frankly, he doesn't know what he's talking about," Biden said in Las Vegas.
Apart from Mr. Biden, the Democratic Party has no contingency plan for the 2024 US presidential election.
The major rail projects are part of an infrastructure plan that Biden pushed through shortly after taking office, including $66 billion for passenger rail, the largest budget for the sector in the US since Amtrak was founded in 1971.
A rail line between San Francisco (California) and Los Angeles is also being studied with federal funding that could cost up to about $3 billion, similar to the Las Vegas - Los Angeles line.
The railway line connecting New Orleans, Louisiana, to Mobile, Alabama, will also reopen nearly 20 years after it was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
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