BALTIMORE — With the ancient, dimly lit Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel behind him, President Joe Biden touted job creation and labor agreements Monday during a visit to Baltimore to highlight replacement of the tunnel, which has come to symbolize America’s crumbling infrastructure.
The White House billed the speech as a “kickoff event” for a $6 billion, federally funded project to replace a 4-mile section of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, including the mile-long, 19th-century B&P Tunnel, with two tubes that will allow trains to travel at 100 mph.
“This is just the beginning of having a 21st-century rail system so long overdue,” the Democratic president said.
As a U.S. senator, Biden commuted between his home state of Delaware and Washington on Amtrak for years. The president said had been through the tunnel 1,000 times while logging more than a million miles on the passenger railroad.
“He’s been stuck by the delays of this tunnel many times,” U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, said during the program.
The old tunnel, built during the administration of Republican President Ulysses S. Grant, is considered a bottleneck for Amtrak and MARC commuter trains because it forces them to creep along at 30 mph or less.
After a MARC train slowly rolled by before Biden spoke, he said: “You know how important this is to commuter rail.”
“Over 2,200 trains run on this corridor every single day. It’s the busiest in the United States and one of the busiest in the world,” the president said.
Biden was greeted by Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, both Democrats, after his Marine One helicopter landed on a patch of grass at Fort McHenry about 1:40 p.m. They entered the same car in a motorcade that sped to the tunnel.
“Presence matters, and the fact that the president is making such an investment in us matters,” Moore said.
Biden spoke from a lectern in front of the tracks near Penn Station. The small opening of the tunnel was visible about 150 yards behind him. Red, white and blue bunting was draped on a nearby bridge and warehouse, and a shiny, new Acela train sat nearby.
Other trains rolled by on adjacent tracks, some sounding their whistles.
Most of the B&P Tunnel project is being funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law approved by Congress in November 2021. Biden considers the $1 trillion package a signature achievement because of its potential effect on roads, tunnels and other infrastructure, and because it is the result of a rare partnership of congressional Democrats and Republicans.
Biden has been touting the law in various spots recently. The president appeared in early January with Mitch McConnell, the U.S. Senate Republican leader from Kentucky, to tout funding for an aging bridge connecting Kentucky and Ohio.
The new B&P tunnel will be named for abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Demolition and track work are planned for this year.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen and U.S. Reps. Kweisi Mfume, C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger and Steny Hoyer also appeared with Biden during the midafternoon speech. All are Democrats.
Not all of the project is federally funded. Moore placed $450 million for the tunnel in his proposed, $63 billion budget plan, which submitted to the General Assembly shortly after he was sworn in Jan. 18.
A White House memorandum emphasizes job creation, saying the tunnel-related work, which will take years, is expected to generate 30,000 jobs, mostly in construction.
The project is being done “in lockstep with the community,” Mfume, who represents the area surrounding the train station, told The Baltimore Sun before Biden spoke.
Biden said the project includes Amtrak labor agreements with the Baltimore-DC Metro Building and Construction Trades Council and the North America’s Building Trades Unions. Such agreements establish rules for such things as work rules and wages.
The Biden administration has promoted the president’s support of organized labor. In 2022, he signed an executive order requiring labor agreements on federal construction projects above $35 million.
The administration was recently criticized by some unions, who said they were undercut by Biden’s support of a measure last December to avert a nationwide rail strike. The administration said a strike would have crippled the economy.
This was Biden’s third visit to Democrat-dominated Baltimore since becoming president in 2021. He’s made trips to the Port of Baltimore and to a CNN town hall at Center Stage.
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