President Biden was in New Jersey today to continue rallying public support for his bipartisan infrastructure deal and Build Back Better plan.
He visited the N-J Transit Meadowlands Maintenance Complex, where he talked about the importance of replacing old bridges and tunnels.
“Aging infrastructure like this is more than an inconvenience or a nuisance it’s an impediment,” the president said, “an impediment to America’s global competitiveness. We’re in a worldwide race. Things have changed.”
Biden did not mince numbers about the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.
“Across the country there are 45,000 bridges in disrepair, some of them dangerously so, 173,000 miles of roads are in poor condition,” he said. “We’re gonna fix them. This is gonna be good union jobs, a prevailing wage you can raise a family on, jobs that can’t be outsourced.”
Biden talked about the need to replace the 110-year-old Portal North Bridge over the Hackensack River, part of the Gateway Project.
“When the Portal Bridge was built it was state of the art, and it really was, but 110 years ago,” he said. “Today it’s being called something different -- a chokepoint, a bottleneck, an Achilles Heel of the Northeast Corridor.”
Governor Murphy was also there and spoke, stressing the need for the Gateway Project, and noting that the Portal Bridge was built during the Taft Administration.
Earlier the president toured East End Elementary School in North Plainfield to make the case for his Build Back Better plan, which would create universal Pre-K for three- and four-year olds.