BMWED Joins Coalition to Support High-Speed Rail Funding
Published: Jun 25 2021 11:09AM
The BMWED-IBT has joined the coalition of labor unions, members of Congress and various rail-related businesses in supporting the long-needed increased funding for high-speed rail routes around the country.
While globally, high-speed rail has been well established for decades in places like Japan, France, Great Britain and China, the United States has long neglected to seriously pursue a high-tech rail network. Because of this, our nation’s highway infrastructure is overcrowded, inefficient and in constant need of repair.
President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan would appropriate $80 billion to rail, but most of that would go toward upgrading existing routes, which are not contemporary and need much more serious changes.
A proposal by a group of 23 Congressmembers, headed by U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and U.S. Reps. Seth Moulton and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, calls for Congress to appropriate $205 billion to develop high-speed rail routes nationwide, far more than the current pending infrastructure legislation. Because lawmakers have shortchanged rail infrastructure projects for decades, our country is woefully behind in this all-important transportation sector. We openly and urgently support this proposal for additional rail funding so that we can begin the process of catching up for lost time.
According to Teamster Rail Conference Assistant Director David Cameron, who spoke to laborpress.org earlier this week, developing a nationwide high-speed rail network would be a massive infrastructure project comparable to the federal interstate highway system begun in 1956 — but it would be far less environmentally damaging and move people far more efficiently. To succeed, though, it will need “reliable billions over decades.”
Those billions would create “literally millions of jobs,” Cameron says. Construction would bring work for electricians and other building-trades workers. Once the routes are completed, BMWED members would provide maintenance, BLET members operations, and BLS members signal work, just to name a few. Every craft on the railroad would benefit from such a project.
Connecting cities and towns regionally, not just in the current Northeast Corridor, but in key “hubs” nationwide, would alleviate highway traffic and relieve overcrowded airports. It would also spur intercity, transit-oriented development near the new downtown stations.
“The BMWED supports the complete funding of a serious, contemporary, state-of-the-art high-speed rail network, one that would rival the best rail transit systems in the world,” BMWED President Freddie N. Simpson said. “We hope Congress finally sees the light in regard to high-speed rail, its vital importance to the future of American transit and sees fit to provide it the funding it truly needs.”