How Realistic Are Maglev Trains?

“Maglev Trains Could Get U.S. Transit Back on Track” (Commentary, June 27) misses the point entirely about U.S. transportation policy. Kevin C. Coates is correct in his assessment of the possibilities of very-high-speed magnetic-levitation ground transportation serving intercity and interurban travel. Maglev trains are capable of much higher speeds, such as 300 mph to 500 mph. Such an intercity and interurban system could make use of the highly underutilized train depots as transportation hubs and terminals.

However, maglev would directly compete with the highly subsidized airline and auto transportation systems, which have powerful state and federal government lobbies whose subsidies and influence protect automakers and airlines from more innovative and cleaner forms of transportation.

I admire Coates’ vision of a workable and proven technology as realistic. However, to expect the U.S. transportation policy to embrace maglev is highly unrealistic.

Kevin Festner

Valley Glen

Now we hear that another wild-eyed idea for maglev transportation is in the works. This latest system is proposed to be routed from Anaheim (read Disneyland) to Las Vegas (read casinos). Glory be: Vegas-ites can spend their day with Goofy and Orange County addicts can lose their shirts on the Strip.

Various other proposals would have lines running from Union Station to Riverside, to LAX and to San Francisco. There was a proposal not too many years ago for a line from LAX to Las Vegas.

If only there were casinos at one end of Wilshire Boulevard and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the other, we’d have had a subway between these two points a long time ago. Instead, there is only a long line of red buses stuck in traffic along the most congested and inefficient transit corridor anywhere in the country. It is also the most densely constructed urban corridor outside Manhattan.

Along which avenues and boulevards would the elevated maglev be routed within urban areas? What would be the noise impact of high-speed bullet trains in residential areas? Who would want to be levitated and riding 50 feet above the ground at over half the speed of sound when a major earthquake takes place? It is remarkable and very apt for Los Angeles that the subway system in Mexico City was up and running within hours of the large quake of 1985. Years would have been required to reconstruct that system if it had been elevated.

Tax money ought to be spent to improve the day-to-day quality of our lives, not for a boondoggle of a joyride across the Mojave Desert.

John Crandell

Paradise, Calif.

There are good reasons why maglev transportation systems have not caught on in the United States. The magnets burn out, they do not pay and the noise is atrocious.

Maglev has been tried all over the world, and it has been abandoned all over the world. They do not silently “fly over” communities and highways, and the author of this article apparently did not interview any of the people who live alongside the tracks.

Why would anyone drive to a maglev station and ride in a moving public room to some remote place to be left without a car when he or she can simply drive to John Wayne Airport, Long Beach Airport or LAX? I doubt that maglev will ever compete with airports or the ROAD (real estate, oil, automobiles and developers).

Donald Nyre

Newport Beach

As a high-speed rail advocate, I’m appalled at the continued drumbeating by agenda-driven individuals for the failed maglev technology.

The prototype Shanghai maglev train has virtually no ridership, and the Chinese government is now favoring the more cost-effective “rail on wheels” high-speed rail technology being utilized worldwide. We already have proven and popular Metrolink trains that move passengers for 10% to 20% of the cost of a maglev train.

Money doesn’t grow on trees -- let’s keep our eyes on the ball and our feet on the ground when it comes to transportation policy.

Kenneth S. Alpern

President, Transit Coalition

Los Angeles