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Political commentary aside, I think this article has a lot of interesting information. With financial incentives from other governments, not corporate investors, you would think that the offer would be taken under serious consideration. Unfortunately, our society isnt quite ready to adopt transit as we feel attached to our personal vehicles and the government should do what it can to ensure that I can use it whenever I want. Or at least that is my impression of the constituency. The biggest issue is the price tag, in an era of budget cuts and sequestration it will be a tall order to pass a $10B project that has harsh critics both domestically and abroad.
Here's my Maglev rant:
ReplyDeleteo They aren't trains, they're planes. Save fuselage, wings replaced by magnets. Only touch the ground at takeoff and landing, in the air (admittedly at a *very* low altitude).
o I believe that after some 50 years of development, there is a single commercial maglev in service, the rest are demos. The German company Transrapid pushed the technology *hard* for a long time and even they gave up.
o As for this project, the Japanese government is offering *loans* not free money. This is an economic development tool for them not a signal that they believe that this is the future. If they believed it was the future, they'd be ripping up their thousands of km of New Trunk Lines ("Shinkansen"). But they aren't. They do have one commercial maglev line in the planning stages and it's expected to open real soon now. 2027. It should be *really* good though, because it's been in the planning stages since 1970.
o Fine, so they suck. The problem with any new anything in the northeast corridor (BOS-WAS) is right-of-way. They claim $8B just to build BAL-WAS. I've not read a lot about this project, but my guess is that doesn't include right-of-way acquisition. My guess would be the price for that would start to come close to the same amount. If you wanted to go further up the coast and make it actually useful for something other than a fast commute, then the price will start climbing quickly. This same problem is why I don't think Amtrak's plan for a new high speed rail line from BOS-WAS isn't going to go anywhere either; land is just too expensive. Happy to be wrong, of course, but I don't see it happening.
I *do* see the existing Northeast Corridor, most of which built by the Pennsylvania RR in the early 1900s, electrified in the 1930s with government stimulus loans, and currently owned by Amtrak (mostly), getting successive upgrades. The east end, Boston to New Haven was just rebuilt and electrified in the 1990s and already has several 150 mph sections. The NYC-WAS section is getting upgrades too and within the next few years will get some 160 mph sections.
I've seen many "plans" that involve private funds to share the cost of upgrades and maintenance but I've yet to see any cash money.