President Biden will travel to Philadelphia Friday to mark Amtrak’s 50th birthday and celebrate his favorite mode of transportation.
During his 36 years as a senator, Biden commuted 90 minutes each way every day on an Amtrak train from his home in Wilmington, Delaware, to Union Station in Washington, D.C. “Amtrak Joe” has estimated that he’s ridden the train more than 2 million miles or 8,200 round trips. Biden will use the occasion to tout his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, which earmarks $80 billion for Amtrak.
In September of 1988, then Senator Joe Biden rides an Amtrak train to Washington DC. (Photo by Joe McNally/Getty Images)
It’s a plan Amtrak’s CEO Bill Flynn calls “very comprehensive.” Flynn recently told Yahoo Finance Live that about $40 billion of that money would be invested in modernizing Amtrak’s heavily traveled Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C. and Boston.
Prior to COVID-19, Amtrak carried a record 32.5 million passengers in 2019. It also reported new financial milestones, posting total revenue of $3.3 billion, up 3.6% from the previous year. Business was so good that Amtrak was on track to post a profit in 2020 for the first time in the company’s history. Of course, the pandemic brought that growth to a screeching halt, but Flynn said ridership is picking up again as the economy continues to rebound.
