Panel Advances Bid to Win High-Speed Train System

A group of Los Angeles-area governments Thursday took an important second step in the national sweepstakes to win $950 million in federal money to build the world’s first full-service, high-speed, magnetic levitation rail system in Southern California.

The proposed “maglev” rail line would cost $5 billion to $6 billion, according to preliminary estimates, and use magnetic energy to run at speeds up to 240 mph over an elevated guideway from Los Angeles International Airport to Riverside, a trip that could be made in 58 minutes, including stops.

Ignoring a large group of skeptics, the Southern California Assn. of Governments believes not only that such a system can be built, but also that California and Los Angeles have the best chance of winning the federal contract because the space-age train would run through one of the nation’s most densely populated transportation corridors.

“If this can be built in Southern California, then it has the potential to be built anywhere in the world,” said Los Alamitos City Councilman Ron Bates.

California is one of seven states in the national competition sponsored by the Federal Railroad Administration to build a maglev rail line. Seed money would be put up by the federal government, but plans call for the system to be financed largely by the private sector.

In the action Thursday, the six-county local government planning agency gave final authorization to a formal application, contained in a loose-leaf binder two inches thick, that will now go to federal railroad authorities. They will decide on two or three finalists and then pay for environmental and feasibility studies that could take up to two years. Other projects being studied are a route from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., a line from Las Vegas to Primm, Nev., and possibly Anaheim, and a route in Pittsburgh that could eventually extend to Philadelphia.

The maglev system outlined for Southern California would generally follow a 75- to 80-mile route down the center of freeways on a T-shaped guideway. The trains would be raised about three-quarters of an inch off the guideway and propelled by high-powered magnets attached to the cars and the guideways.

Specific routes are still being discussed. The idea is to link LAX with Ontario International Airport and the site of the old March Air Force Base in Riverside, drawing riders from among air travelers, commuters and tourists. As many as 80,000 passengers a day are projected.

Major selling points are that the trains are environmentally friendly, because they don’t burn fossil fuel, and are quiet because they don’t generate the noisy friction of conventional trains that run steel wheels over steel rails.

Financing would come from a variety of sources, including federal and state governments, but construction and operation of the system would be privately financed, said Mark Pisano, executive director of the association of governments.

“We need to move something forward that solves our congestion and air quality problems and relieves the stress on our airports,” Pisano said.

Pisano said that interest has been expressed by a number of major industrial and aerospace firms, but that it is premature to start lining up potential partners.

The best-known maglev train is in Emsland, Germany, and runs around a demonstration track that is less than 20 miles long. Germany considered building a maglev train between Hamburg and Berlin but concluded that it would not generate enough revenue to be financially viable and scrapped the idea.

In California, the maglev project is being developed in tandem with a more conventional 700-mile high-speed rail line that would connect San Francisco and Los Angeles. Although both projects are being sponsored by the state Department of Transportation, something of a competition has developed between sponsors of the two plans.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, head of the council committee that oversees transit programs, said the statewide system makes more sense because it would solve what she considers a more important transit problem: providing a high-speed link between Northern and Southern California.

“I would rather see the kind of resources they are talking about be invested in a train system that is more important to the entire state,” Galanter said.

The statewide system would cost a minimum of $25 billion and require a statewide vote to approve bond financing.