PITTSBURGH, Pa. — To get a high-speed maglev train project in the Pittsburgh region, the buck starts, not stops, at the top, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
That is, the Bush administration has yet to say if it is willing to invest $950 million in a project that may never advance beyond a prototype, such as an 18-mile line between Downtown and Pittsburgh International Airport.
A growing federal budget deficit, the war on terrorism and possibly against Iraq, Amtrak’s plight and the proven success of high-speed rail that already goes 180-plus mph in other parts of the world raises the odds against maglev’s endorsement.
Many other conditions will have to be met and questions will have to be answered before The Pennsylvania Project goes anywhere. That’s the official name for the local undertaking because the Port Authority and Pennsylvania Department of Transportation are involved as public partners with the private, Monroeville-based Maglev Inc.
Besides the White House, other hurdles include:
–Federal Railroad Administration. The federal agency is to choose by June the winner of a national high-speed maglev demonstration project competition that has been narrowed to semifinalists: the Pennsylvania Project and a Baltimore-Washington, D.C., maglev line being developed under the auspices of the Maryland Department of Transportation.
No matter who wins, U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, appears adamant that if maglev happens at all, a second project will be pursued in the Los Angeles-Las Vegas corridor.
–Federal funding. The $950 million earmarked for a national demonstration project is included in the 1998 Transportation Efficiency Act-21, known as TEA-21, which expires 11 months from now.
The $950 million, and maybe more to cover inflation and better cost estimates, will have to be included in new legislation that reauthorizes spending on roads, bridges, waterways, air, rail, transit, safety and special projects such as maglev for the next four years.
Maglev Inc. is pinning its hopes on U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., a powerful lawmaker who has ridden a maglev test train in Germany and is highly supportive of the technology.
–State funding. If the federal funding works out, the state must provide $475 million as its share for the project, which is estimated to exceed $3 billion in total costs.
Given the state’s uncertain budget situation, officials have begun questioning whether enough money will be available.
Gov.-elect Ed Rendell said in October that maglev trains fit his goal of encouraging high-tech development and would create the types of jobs that keep young people here.
–Local funding approval. Again, if other funding comes through, Maglev Inc. and its partners and shareholders are to come up with at least a $500 million local share of money.
Maglev Inc. has not identified how it will raise the money.
The corporation itself doesn’t have much cash. It wasn’t until July 6 that Maglev paid a $274,270 share for the 2000 fiscal year as part of a $630,000 match toward government funding for planning and environmental studies under way.
Local opposition. Robinson in Allegheny County and Penn Township in Westmoreland County, two municipalities through which the full Airport-Pittsburgh-Monroeville-Greensburg maglev would run, have hired attorneys and consultants to fight route alignments.
Robinson’s opposition is more troubling to Maglev Inc. because that’s where the first phase, or prototype, would be built.
Township leaders say rights-of-way for the present alignment would divide the community, require demolition of some $300,000 houses, and remove about $75 million worth of property from the tax rolls. Maglev officials say a new route would mean revisiting long, costly environmental studies and technical evaluations. The change also could jeopardize the ability of trains to achieve a 240 mph speed.
–Legal questions. Port Authority and PennDOT, the public partners, have questions that have not been resolved about Maglev Inc.’s private role in the venture.
For example, Maglev Inc. proposes to float bonds to help cover its share of costs, but will they be investment-grade bonds good enough to attract Wall Street buyers? On the other hand, a public entity could sell tax-exempt bonds.
Also, as a private corporation, Maglev Inc. could not use eminent domain to acquire rights of way, while government agencies can.
Port Authority and PennDOT also have been pondering how the project will be advanced, financed and governed.
–Increasing costs. What was announced as a $39 million-a-mile project several years ago has escalated into an estimated $1.6 billion project for just the first 18 miles between the airport and Downtown, including three sets of trains, a maintenance and control facility and three stations called Magports. That translates to about $89 million a mile.
Extensions to Monroeville in the next phase and to Greensburg in the final phase, plus more magports, are estimated to cost another $1.4 billion to $1.6 billion for a system that could extend 54 miles upon completion more than 10 years from now.
–Technology. Maglev Inc.’s exclusive agreement for high-speed train technology with the German company Transrapid KG, which has built and operates test trains and track, covers Pennsylvania only, so the company can sell the same technology to competing regions.
Vukan Vuchic, a University of Pennsylvania transportation professor who’s regarded as an international authority on rail technology and systems, recently co-authored a scientific paper evaluating maglev and high-speed rail. The analysis concluded that maglev has virtually no advantage in speed, noise, operation, energy savings or convenience.
But, the report said, if a demonstration is built in the U.S., it should be the longer line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, which would have considerably more ridership potential and be better test of maglev capabilities.
–Ridership. Officials maintain Maglev Inc.’s ridership figures are inflated and, therefore, even at a $5 fare per segment, the system won’t generate sufficient revenue to pay off bonds after expenses to run and maintain the line.
Less than two years ago, Maglev Inc.’s figures projected providing 67,100 rides daily between Downtown and Pittsburgh International Airport. Maglev Inc. says the number counted people who said they were interested in riding any high-speed rail, not necessarily maglev, on a system extending to Monroeville and Greensburg.
Figures for the Phase 1 airport-to-Pittsburgh maglev system are far lower, about 15,000 a day.
–Trust and disclosure. Maglev Inc. has been criticized by some local, Port Authority and PennDOT officials for being disingenuous and arrogant about internal and financial matters.
Since federal money has poured into the project, the salaries of the two top Maglev Inc. officers, President Fred Gurney and Vice President Frank Clark, have been doubled to $200,00 and $175,000 a year, respectively. Maglev board Chairman Rick Cessar, a former state representative, receives an undisclosed “executive salary.”
Gurney refused to divulge payroll information, merit increases and fringe benefits. Maglev Inc.’s public partners say they don’t know. Board meetings are private and minutes distributed to directors are prefaced “Confidential-Proprietary.”
–Failed partnerships. Because of its own troubled finances, US Airways has ended its affiliation as a Maglev Inc. equity partner and has stopped providing free and low-cost fares to fly guests to Germany to look at Transrapid’s facilities and test-ride its high-speed train.
Another partner, Raleigh, N.C.-based CargoLifter Inc., which was developing freight airships four times larger than a Goodyear blimp, has gone bankrupt. Maglev Inc. had hoped to use the giant dirigibles to move prefabricated sections of elevated guideway into place from a Mon Valley manufacturing facility.