(The Contra Costa Times posted the following Associated Press article by Lara Lakes Jordan on its website on February 13.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Pennsylvania’s longtime push for the nation’s first futuristic commercial train could be derailed this year as a key Nevada senator in charge of a multibillion-dollar transportation spending bill eyes the project for his own state, officials said Wednesday.
Gov. Ed Rendell, in Washington to meet with Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation, vowed to fight for the high-speed magnetic levitation train, or “maglev,” for which his state has been vying for four years.
“They are coming in late,” Rendell said of the strong, new push by Nevada officials that surfaced only over the last four months. “So we’re hanging in there.”
Maglev trains use powerful magnets, instead of friction-causing wheels, to move at speeds of more than 300 mph. Prototypes using the costly technology have been built in Germany and Japan, and China is set to begin operating the world’s first commercial maglev train later this year.
Only one project nationwide is expected to win $950 million in federal construction funds for a maglev train. In 2001, Pennsylvania was designated as one of two finalists – of seven contenders – for the grant that requires $575 million in state and local matching funds. The other finalist, the state of Maryland, has since identified maglev as a “long-term priority” in the face of a $1.8 billion deficit.
But Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid, D-Nev., recently stepped up efforts to bring maglev to his state. He is helping to write the massive transportation reauthorization spending bill – known as “TEA-21” – that will fund the maglev project when it is approved later this year.
“We will do everything possible to site it in Nevada,” said Susan McCue, Reid’s chief of staff. Reid is the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the Republican-controlled Senate and is up for re-election next year.
Pennsylvania’s maglev plan – a 47-mile stretch of track linking Pittsburgh and its eastern suburbs to Pittsburgh International Airport – has so far collected $15.8 million in federal preconstruction funds since 1999. Total costs are estimated at $2.7 billion, and the project could be up and running as early as 2007.
Nevada’s maglev blueprint, by comparison, has so far received $5.4 million in federal planning dollars. The first planned segment would be a 40-mile track between Las Vegas and Primm, Nev., that would cost $1.3 billion. The entire project, discussed for nearly two decades, is envisioned to run 269 miles between Las Vegas and Anaheim, Calif., and would cost $9 billion.
Reid now is working to bring maglev construction money – awarded only to the ultimate winner – back home, McCue said.
“The past few months, we’ve really been stepping it up,” she said. “And for the next two years, it’ll be a major (funding) increase, to move beyond the planning stage and to begin construction.”
The Federal Railroad Administration – a branch of the U.S. Transportation Department – selected Pennsylvania as a maglev finalist because of its greater potential for ridership and profit, spokesman Warren Flatau said.
“In keeping with the requirements of TEA-21 … our expectation is that the $950 million would go to one project,” Flatau said.
The brewing maglev battle was the topic of a meeting in Washington attended by Rendell, Allegheny County officials, representatives of Maglev, Inc., a public-private partnership working to bring the high-speed train to Pittsburgh, and Pennsylvania Sens. Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum.
Specter, a top Republican on the powerful Senate Appropriations Transportation subcommittee, predicted Wednesday night that Reid will be unsuccessful in siphoning maglev funding away from Pennsylvania.
“I want to work with him, not fight him,” Specter said. “But I’m prepared to fight.”