Tuesday night's horrific Amtrak crash was a wake-up call for a nation that drastically needs improvements to its infrastructure, said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said city leaders "fear that there may be some New Yorkers" among the crash's victims.
"This one hit home because this train line [is] from Washington through Philadelphia and New York City, so many people depend on it," said de Blasio, who appeared with Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett on
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program Wednesday.
"It's a shock to all of us that an accident like this could happen right in the middle of Philadelphia."
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On Tuesday after 9 p.m., Train 188, a Northeast Regional, left Washington, D.C., on its way to New York when it
derailed shortly after rounding a bend just north of Philadelphia. Amtrak said the train was carrying 238 passengers and five crew members, and six people have been confirmed dead.
Officials Wednesday morning are reporting that there are still some people missing after the accident, which is being described as one of the worst train incidents in recent history.
The Northwest Regional corridor has been shut down as a result of the crash, and de Blasio said that the closure will also take a financial toll on the region's economy.
"I think I saw an estimate of a $100 million impact on our economy when the Northeast corridor is shut down," said de Blasio. "Every single day."
He said he and Cornett, as co-chairs of the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Cities of Opportunity Task Force, plan to speak Wednesday on Capitol Hill about getting "serious about actually investing in our infrastructure if we want to be a strong and competitive country in the future."
Cornett also told the program that Amtrak receives nowhere near enough federal support.
"I don't think there's any better example of Congress' unwillingness to invest in something that the American people want," said Cornett.
The nation's infrastructure is also woefully underfunded, the Republican mayor told the program.
"I think there needs to be a different solution to the way they're funding our infrastructure in this country," said Cornett. "The typical federal gas tax, that model is outdated. Technologies are changing and they need to address it. So it's on the funding side and the receiving side.
"But this needs to become a priority for Congress," he said. "They've overlooked it too long. It's a ticking time bomb for American cities."
De Blasio agreed, saying in New York City alone there are 160 bridges that are over 100 years old.
"We have the challenge everyday of just keeping the basics together," he said. "Our subway system had a day last year when we got 6 million riders in a single day. Six million riders in one day. You can imagine the toll it takes.
"So we are absolutely united with a large number of business organizations that this country has to invest in infrastructure the way other countries do."
De Blasio pointed out that the United States puts just 1.7 percent of its gross daily product into infrastructure, while "Europe puts 5 percent, China puts 9 percent."
"No wonder we're being beat economically in many, many areas of competition because other parts of the world are investing in infrastructure, so they can have a modern economy," de Blasio said.
New York City, with its millions of subway riders, struggles through times when the trains come in so full that "me or no one else can get on that train," he added. "It's common in New York City on some lines during rush hour you wait two or three trains, whole trains go by and you literally can't even get on they're so full.
"If we don't get federal support, there's no way we can address the problem."
Cornett said that in his city, citizens vote on their own taxes to improve infrastructure issues, "but we need a change in the way we fund infrastructure, and Congress needs to understand it needs to be a higher priority in their bill."
De Blasio said he and Cornett went through the issue in detail in an op-ed in Wednesday's
New York Times, and that it is "very clear about the fact that our citizens are demanding this."
Added de Blasio, "We won't be able to compete in the world or create the jobs we need without an infrastructure that's truly modern. Right now we are just putting Band-Aids on a failing infrastructure."
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who also appeared on the "Morning Joe" program, called the train crash an example of "how terrible our nation's infrastructure is."
Trains such as those running the Northeast corridor route try to generate speed, and "where the crash occurred, it's a very curved section of track and you can't run any sort of speed trains on curved track."
Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass also told MSNBC that improvements to the nation's infrastructure are desperately needed, but "we're pig-headed and not willing [that] we should invest."
Investing is also "a great use of the middle-class jobs the politicians talk about all the time," Haass said. "The bottom line is, how many tragedies do we have to go to? What will happen — for two weeks people will say we have to do something about our infrastructure, and move on."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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