President touts infrastructure in Md.
‘Finally getting it done,’ he says rail fix shows
BALTIMORE — President Joe Biden stood Monday before a decrepit rail tunnel that he estimated he’s been through 1,000 times — fearing for decades it might collapse.
“For years, people talked about fixing this tunnel,” Biden told a crowd in Baltimore. “Back in the early ’80s, I actually walked into the tunnel with some of the construction workers. … This is a 150-year-old tunnel. You wonder how in the hell it’s still standing.”
“With the bipartisan infrastructure law, though, we’re finally getting it done.”
The president came to familiar terrain to promote his 2021 infrastructure law, a bipartisan win that is just now ramping up the spending on major projects.
Biden said replacing the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel could slash what’s now a 60-minute Baltimore-to-washington commute in half, giving daily riders extra time with family and friends.
As a senator, the president regularly journeyed home to Delaware on Amtrak through the tunnel. He rode “15 percent of the time with engineers,” he said, and had a key to get into the back of the trains.
The new tunnel will lead to 20,000 construction jobs and cut down on auto traffic and pollution, he said, “jobs for folks I used to think about as I took the train home at night.”
Baltimore is the first of three trips this week that Biden has dedicated to infrastructure. On Tuesday, he will travel to New York to talk about plans for another new rail tunnel, this one under the Hudson River.
On Friday, Biden is headed to Philadelphia, where the Democratic National Committee is also holding its winter meeting to finalize the party’s primary schedule.