By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The U.S. president Joe Biden will nominate five individuals to the Amtrak board. This is because the U.S. passenger railway has been aggressive in expanding service and improving key infrastructure. A source told Reuters Friday that this was a plan.

As part of the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, Congress approved $22 billion to Amtrak last November. Congress was asked by the Biden Administration to provide $3 billion per year for Amtrak in the 2023 budget, an increase of $2.33 trillion in the previous annual funding.

Amtrak would receive $7.4 Billion in funding for 2023 including infrastructure bills. It wants to grow dramatically throughout the United States, adding 39 corridor routes to the existing 166 cities and establishing a network of 66 more by 2035.

Biden will nominate Anthony Coscia to the board as chair, a former chair of the Port Authority of New York, according to the official.

He also intends to nominate David Capozzi (a retired senior federal executive and ex-national advocacy director for Paralyzed Veteran of America); Normal, Illinois Mayor Christopher Koos; Delaware State AFL-CIO President Samuel Lathem, who was a Chrysler autoworker; Robin Wiessmann as executive director and chief executive at the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency.

Biden commuted for many decades between Delaware and Washington when he served in the Senate, earning the nickname “Amtrak Joe”.

Biden’s administration considers increasing public transit service and rail service to be a crucial part of climate change and congestion reduction.

Amtrak Board 10 includes Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner) and eight appointed members. Biden will make the five Democratic nominations to the board. However, it’s not known who the Senate Republicans will be seeking for the board.