PITTSBURGH — Residents of two growing suburban communities have organized opposition to a high-speed maglev train proposed for their neighborhoods, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The Port Authority and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, government sponsors for the Pennsylvania Project, are posing difficult questions to their private partner, Maglev Inc., a group that has been chasing its dream for more than 12 years.
Allegheny County Chief Executive Jim Roddey is pushing for a decision about maglev, while Fred Gurney, president of Monroeville-based Maglev Inc., concedes increasing costs and opposition are presenting new challenges.
No wonder that enthusiasm for establishing a national maglev demonstration project in Western Pennsylvania appears to be fading.
“We need to bring this whole question about maglev to some sort of conclusion,” Roddey said. “The longer we wait, the longer we delay other plans like pursuing a light-rail alternative” to Pittsburgh International Airport.
A draft environmental study, now being reviewed by the Federal Railroad Administration, is to be completed soon and made available for public review. Then hearings will be scheduled, tentatively late next month, to discuss the 54-mile line that would link the airport, Downtown, Monroeville and Greensburg at stations called magports.
The futuristic system uses electromagnetics to levitate and propel trains to more than 240 mph on a mostly elevated steel guideway.
Because estimated costs for the line now exceed $3 billion, the project has been divided into phases.
The first phase would be built between the airport and Downtown. It would cost about $1.6 billion for the guideway, three train sets, three magports and a maintenance facility; and would cut through the heart of Robinson, one of Allegheny County’s growing suburbs.
“At first, I thought this was a great idea,” said John Roseto, a Robinson resident who is a member of a local steering committee opposed to the alignment. “Then I find out the guideway will cause a 250-foot-long, 35-foot-deep trench to be ripped through the township.”
Robinson has hired a Washington, D.C., law firm to work with the group and township commissioners. Meanwhile, in Penn Township in Westmoreland County, consultants have been called in and one proposal calls for ending maglev in Monroeville.
Others wonder if the state and county and local investors can raise the money for Phase 1, even if The Pennsylvania Project beats the Baltimore-to-Washington, D.C., project in semifinal competition for $950 million in federal funds. Those funds are not guaranteed.
“Our vision is to create a system eventually connecting East Coast cities and the Midwest,” said Gurney, an undeterred optimist. “9/11 showed our vulnerability in moving people around. Here’s a system with viability up to 600 miles. Maglev is a special federal project. It’s going to happen somewhere.”
Even if Maglev Inc.’s stars line up, Gurney said, it will be at least 2009 before Phase 1 of The Pennsylvania Project could whisk people between the airport and Downtown in what is projected to be eight minutes.
“Regardless of who gets high-speed maglev, the manufacturing can still be done in the Pittsburgh region because of what Maglev Inc. has accomplished,” said U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Swissvale. “The payoff comes when maglev becomes an alternative to 200-mile and 300-mile air flights.”
The Port Authority and PennDOT have been working with Maglev Inc. in the public-private partnership since 1999. They have spent about $17.7 million in mostly federal funds, including $12.5 million which has gone to Maglev Inc., an enterprise with 28 employees of its own. A request for another $1.2 million in federal funds is in the works.
But the relationship has grown contentious.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has obtained a series of letters sent over the past five months, including one to U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Maglev Inc.’s main political supporter. Maglev Inc. complained “events transpiring are causing us serious concern.”
Maglev Inc. contended, in essence, that both the authority and PennDOT appeared to be cutting out or reducing their involvement with the project, “squandering public funds for its own consultants” and otherwise undermining the project. In one letter, Maglev Inc. suggested that the Port Authority be removed as a public partner because maglev may someday span the state and will extend beyond the authority’s legal jurisdiction.
Gurney didn’t want to discuss the original letter to Specter. He said he didn’t want to create any ill will.
“Our success has come because we’re an industry-university-labor organization,” he said. “All of those people want to see this continue and they’re all playing a role.”
Port Authority Chief Executive Officer Paul Skoutelas and Rick Peltz, a PennDOT deputy secretary in charge of the department’s maglev involvement, said the letters were internal matters and would not discuss them.
“We’re fulfilling our obligation to put the best possible proposal before the Federal Railroad Administration and trying to win the competition for federal dollars,” Skout-elas said. “At this point, nobody can say if there will be a project. The[Bush] people seem lukewarm about it. But if The Pennsylvania Project gets a go, we’ll do all that’s possible to see high-speed maglev through fruition.”
He added, “Yes, there are questions and concerns. Whatever it takes, that’s what we’re going to do.”
Peltz, who’s leaving PennDOT soon to take a federal position, said problems came with any infrastructure project as complex as high-speed maglev.
“I’m a builder,” he said. “The only way you learn about new technology is to build it. If maglev succeeds, it will have a multiplier affect on jobs and a multitude of opportunities in Pittsburgh and, eventually, other parts of the state.”