Just a month after being rejected in its multi-year-long bid to secure $1 billion in federal funding to build a $6 billion magnetic-levitation bullet train system, the Southern California Association of Governments is mounting an all-out campaign directed at the newly installed Bush administration.
And this time, SCAG officials are seeking federal loan guarantees if they can’t get a federal grant.
Several federal officials and transportation experts said they are perplexed by SCAG’s near-obsessive pursuit of its 92-mile “maglev” rail project, despite it being passed over Jan. 19 in its bid for federal funding of a maglev demonstration project.
The Clinton administration, on its last day before Bush’s inauguration, selected proposals from Baltimore and Pennsylvania to remain eligible for the federal grant. A Department of Transportation official involved in the grant selection process said the maglev technology may be ill-suited for Southern California’s shorter-haul commutes.
“Maglev shines at a longer distance. New York to Boston. Boston to Washington. So maybe 20 years from now you build the big one,” said the official, who requested anonymity. “The L.A. people were looking to have it serve commuter traffic.”
SCAG officials, nevertheless, remain fixated on building a maglev system running alongside or on the center median of the region’s freeways that would connect LAX to March Air Force Base, with stops in West L.A., downtown, West Covina, Ontario Airport, San Bernardino and Riverside.
“Maglev aids us in improving mobility and meeting air quality requirements,” said SCAG President Ron Bates, a Los Alamitos councilman. “There is no reason for us to stop the process from moving maglev forward, and obviously that is what we will continue to do.”
SCAG officials are further enboldened by President Bush’s appointment of Norman Mineta, a former California congressman with a history of supporting maglev, as the new Secretary of Transportation.
Bates said a meeting with Mineta “looked promising,” but would not comment further.
But he did confirm that SCAG is no longer insisting that a federal grant would be necessary to make the local maglev system a reality. The agency now believes that a federal loan guarantee would be sufficient, and that the system could support itself through passenger fares.
The DOT official expressed doubts.
Huge undertaking
“All (the competing cities) had financial plans that showed they work, but none of the systems would pay for themselves out of the fare box though L.A. made that claim,” the DOT official said. “You’re talking about one of the biggest transportation projects in the country, unless you consider the construction of an entirely new airport or the Los Angeles airport expansion.”
SCAG sees the maglev project as possibly the best solution to dealing with the swelling Southern California population, which is projected to exceed 22 million people by 2020, adding 2.7 million more vehicles to already jammed roadways.
The technology uses powerful levitation magnets to draw trains along a monorail guideway on a 3/8-inch cushion of air at speeds exceeding 200 mph.
Federal officials have commented little on their choice of the two East Coast projects over the Los Angeles proposal, as well as over proposals from Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Nevada.
However, the DOT official said last week that it was clear that the Los Angeles project was intended to serve as a regional rail system rather than as a true demonstration project, noting that the two chosen projects are roughly half the size and half the cost of the Los Angeles proposal.
“(L.A.’s bid) was a project which probably, if executed, would have had the most traffic on it, would have provided the most benefits. On the other hand, it was the most expensive,” said the official.
The intent of the federal program, he pointed out, is to quickly build a smaller system to see if the public accepts the technology, which might then prompt private investors to participate in a larger system connecting cities hundreds of miles apart.
The official added there also were real concerns at DOT that attempting to build such a system through the country’s second largest metropolitan region might generate too much opposition, despite the apparent political support.
“If you have a 90-mile rail line through one of the most congested regions in the country, you have all kinds of issues that could derail the project,” he said.
SCAG has managed to draw bipartisan support from the state’s congressional delegation, as well as from scores of cities and local elected officials, but the line has critics who claim it would be a boondoggle.
“SCAG estimated the costs as being about the same as the Blue Line, and I don’t believe that,” said Jim Moore, an associate professor of civil engineering and public policy at USC, who derides claims that the system could pay for itself solely through passenger fares. “Maglev is not even remotely a mature technology. We would certainly have to subsidize it for anyone to use it.”
