U.S. to Fund Study of Local High-Speed Rail

Southern California finally can say something good about its reputation for eternally gridlocked freeways: It has earned the region a multimillion-dollar federal grant to study building a futuristic train that could travel up to 250 mph.

Federal transportation officials are to announce Monday that seven areas of the country will split $12 million to gauge prospects for a magnetic levitation train system within their locales.

The system proposed for Los Angeles would zip passengers from Los Angeles International Airport through Union Station in downtown Los Angeles to March Air Force Base in Riverside, stopping in the San Gabriel Valley--perhaps Arcadia--and at Ontario Airport. The system would probably run above or along freeways.

Its projected cost: $3.2 billion.

Though the idea of so-called maglev trains--levitated up to a few inches above a guideway by electromagnets and propelled by electromagnetic force--has been proposed before, Los Angeles would be competing for nearly $1 billion in federal funds to help build the line.

A grant also is expected to be awarded to study the first segment of a proposed Las Vegas-to-Anaheim maglev system; that leg would run from the gambling mecca to the California-Nevada border. It has been promoted as a way to ease traffic on I-15.

Once the studies are completed, the federal Transportation Department will select the corridor to receive the $1 billion, a decision expected in July 2000.

U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) hailed the federal grant as a “giant leap forward toward 21st century transportation in California.”

The Los Angeles region is considered a strong contender for the final prize because of its legendary traffic problems.

The Southern California Assn. of Governments, which proposed the 75-mile maglev line in Los Angeles, sees it as the answer to every commuter’s dream--a hassle-free ride to the airport. A maglev trip from downtown Los Angeles to LAX would take minutes and cost perhaps $2.50 one way, the association’s planners said.

The super-speed train, which would produce little noise and pollution, also is seen as a major way to help the region meet air pollution standards.

But before you sell your car, remember that previous maglev studies are gaining dust in transportation libraries because the systems are costly. What’s more, no maglev train is currently in commercial service--anywhere.

Efforts to build a maglev system in the U.S. have endured in large part because of the interest of congressional supporters such as Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.).

Funds to study a maglev train were authorized in a multibillion-dollar transportation bill approved last year, although Congress still would have to allocate the $950 million that would be the federal share of construction funding.

Mark Pisano, executive director of the association of governments, said that--unlike the much-maligned Los Angeles subway project--the maglev line would be built largely with private funding. “Congress would not have moved forward on a project that it didn’t feel had a chance of being implemented,” he said.

He also said that the project is important to “resolving the political debate surrounding airport siting and expansion” in Southern California. “We have capacity in the outlying airports but it is difficult for air travelers to get to them.” His organization hopes to see a maglev system that would eventually reach airports in Palmdale and Orange County.

Unlike previous ill-fated maglev proposals, the current proposal relies on moving commuters throughout the region--a projected 142,000 commuters a day--rather than from one distant city to another, Pisano said.

In its application for federal funding, the association said that a maglev train would help Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Imperial, Riverside and San Bernardino counties prepare for a projected population increase of 6.8 million--”twice the current population of Chicago”--by the year 2020.

But the maglev system has its skeptics.

Bill Withuhn, curator of transportation at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, said that he rode a maglev train on a test track in Germany. He said that a fellow rider asked why, if the system is so great, it was not in commercial service. “They didn’t have a good answer,” he said.