President Joe Biden’s infrastructure improvement program would include restoring Amtrak intercity rail passenger service to Phoenix and Las Vegas.
Both cities were dropped from Amtrak’s network in the 1990s — Las Vegas because of the elimination of a train that stopped traveled between Los Angeles and Ogden, Utah, and Phoenix because of rerouting within Arizona of a different train that formerly went through Phoenix .
Since 1996, the Amtrak station in Maricopa, about 27 miles (43 kilometers) south of Phoenix, has been the stop closet to Arizona’s most populous city.
A map released Wednesday to illustrate Biden’s proposed expansion of Amtrak’s national network shows a new route between Las Vegas and Los Angeles and restoration of the previously halted service through Phoenix on a route between Los Angeles and New Orleans.