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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 20, 2009
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Contact: Zach Goldberg
202-225-5801 (office) |
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HOLT, MURPHY HIGHLIGHT RAIL MODERNIZATION
FUNDING IN ECONOMIC RECOVERY BILL
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(Trenton, NJ) – U.S. Reps. Rush Holt (NJ-12) and Patrick Murphy (PA-8) today discussed how the Northeast Corridor, including New Jersey and Pennsylvania, will benefit from public transportation funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The bill includes $1.3 billion for Amtrak, 60 percent of which is designated for the Northeast Corridor. The bill also includes $60 million to install Positive Train Control on the south-end of the Northeast Corridor between New York and Washington, DC. PTC is an advanced signaling technology that can prevent train-to-train collisions, over-speed derailments, train incursions into roadway work zones, and movement over switches improperly lined.
Holt and Murphy also noted that the recovery bill includes $423.4 million for NJ Transit, and $200.4 million for SEPTA.
“This historic investment is vital to our effort to make our public transit system as safe, as reliable, as secure as it can be,” Holt said. “You can’t repair and update our nation’s infrastructure without workers. By providing this funding, we’re creating and saving jobs for the talented men and women who do the work to modernize our rail system.”
“With millions of jobs lost and spending down – we could not afford to wait any longer. That is why Representative Holt and I took swift action to jump-start our economy and put people back to work,” Murphy said. “We acted boldly to strengthen our weakening infrastructure and modernize our transit system for the long term. We will create jobs with these new funds.”
Holt and Murphy were joined by Steve Santoro, Assistant Director, NJ Transit, Jerome Harris from the City of Trenton, and members of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way, who work on modernization projects.
With the support of Holt and Murphy, Congress passed and President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, legislation that will save and create jobs, help struggling families, and establish sustainable growth for our economy. It is estimated that the bill will save or create 3 to 4 million jobs, including an estimated 100,000 jobs in New Jersey and 143,000 in Pennsylvania.
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