The Antiplanner

A MagLev for Pittsburgh?

12th November 2009

A MagLev for Pittsburgh?

posted in News commentary, Transportation |

Why is it that certain technologies inspire such religious passion in people? A wacky proposal to spend billions of dollars building a maglev rail line from Pittsburgh Airport through downtown Pittsburgh to one of its suburbs has enough traction that the Pennsylvania House Transportation Committee recently held hearings on it.

Someone might be excused for thinking that maglev would be the solution to traffic problems around the airports in Atlanta, Dallas, or other fast-growing regions. But Pittsburgh? Which, as Wendell Cox notes, is the only major U.S. urban area that is losing population? What is the point? Evidently, the point is to spend lots of money, which seems to be the name of the game for politicians — especially in Pennsylvania.

In any case, at the request of a Pennsylvania free-market think tank, the Antiplanner offered written testimony on the proposal. This led to an editorial in the Pittsburgh Tribune and, inevitably, to maglev nuts sending me emails about what an idiot I am for not seeing how wonderful it would be if only Pittsburgh had a maglev.

Ever since I first heard of maglev, back in the 1970s, it always seemed to be the technology whose time was just about to come. The idea of levitating trains seemed like magic. The fact that they encountered no friction made it seem like they would be super energy efficient.

As it turns out, appendix B of an analysis by the Center for Clean Air Policy finds that getting the trains to levitate requires so much electricity that maglev is no more energy efficient or greenhouse friendly than automobiles today, and far less than TGV or other high-speed rail today or autos of the future. Moreover, maglev’s high cost and incompatibilities with other rail infrastructure are not offset by its slight speed advantage. So, while maglev will always have its strong adherents (who want others to pay for building it for them), I don’t think maglev will ever make sense anywhere in the world.

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There are currently 5 responses to “A MagLev for Pittsburgh?”

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  1. 1 On November 12th, 2009, C. P. Zilliacus said:

    The Antiplanner wrote:

    > A wacky proposal to spend billions of dollars building a maglev rail line from Pittsburgh Airport through
    > downtown Pittsburgh to one of its suburbs has enough traction that the Pennsylvania House Transportation
    > Committee recently held hearings on it.

    Traction?

    The Antiplanner’s notion of a pun in this context?

    Traction or no, Wikipedia has a pretty decent article about maglev here.

    From the Wikipedia article above is this gem:

    The United States Federal Railroad Administration 2003 Draft Environmental Impact Statement for a proposed Baltimore-Washington Maglev project gives an estimated 2008 capital costs of 4.361 billion US dollars for 39.1 miles, or 111.5 million US dollars per mile (69.3 million US dollars per kilometer). The Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) conducted their own Environmental Impact Statement, and put the pricetag at 4.9 billion dollars for construction, and 53 million a year for operations.

    posted on November 12th, 2009 at 10:16 am

  2. 2 On November 12th, 2009, Hugh Jardonn said:

    Look at proposed German maglev projects between Hamburg and Berlin and from downtown Munich to the airport. Price tags for these projects were high and the projects were ultimately dropped. Harry Reid recently gave up on the expensive Las Vegas-Disneyland project because nothing’s happened in the last 3 decades.

    posted on November 12th, 2009 at 10:56 am

  3. 3 On November 12th, 2009, prk166 said:

    “the only major U.S. urban area that is losing population”

    Only? Cleveland MSA is shrinking. Metro Detroit is estimated to have shrank during the last couple of years. And of course there’s New Orleans MSA but that’s another story for another blog. :)

    I’m not too worried about population growth in Pittsburgh so much as the ridership for this. I have a hard time seeing how with 4 stations they’re going to attract enough riders to justify the $4billion in costs.

    posted on November 12th, 2009 at 11:43 am

  4. 4 On November 14th, 2009, Tad Winiecki said:

    Maglev doesn’t have to use a lot of power and it is about the only way to go really fast on the ground, because wheels are limited by material strength.
    The primary desirable features are to use small lightweight capsules carrying six to eight people and vacuum pipes with permanent magnet maglev tracks.
    See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeS_U9qFg7Y for a demo of a bulk superconducting maglev toy train which uses almost no energy to suspend the vehicle. It would work a lot better in a vacuum where there would be no ice buildup and no aerodynamic drag to slow it down. See http://www.et3.com .
    The problem with maglev trains is not maglev suspension, it is big heavy train cars which require big heavy infrastructure.
    SkyTran™ is an urban maglev system with small capsules and an Inductrak™ suspension system. This maglev is also energy efficient because of small, lightweight, streamlined pods and the Inductrak™ system which doesn’t require active control electronics for the suspension. See http://www.skytran.net/phpsite/home/Home%20Intro.php

    posted on November 14th, 2009 at 1:41 am

  5. 5 On November 18th, 2009, MJ said:

    This is a pretty unusual proposal. The downtown-to-airport part of it is not unheard of (though cities with much larger airports are usually the focus of such proposals), but I’m puzzled by the eastern section of the line, which seems to be serving as a commuter-type system. This design doesn’t really allow the maglev to take advantage of its main feature, namely very high line-haul speeds (as can be achieved intercity settings), as mentioned by Tad.

    posted on November 18th, 2009 at 10:50 am

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