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StumbleSun Editorial:
Expanding our horizons
Planners in Nevada and nearby states are envisioning regional rail service
Monday, Sept. 14, 2009 | 2:05 a.m.
It was 20 years ago when local planners started envisioning not only improvements to U.S. 95 and that highway’s interchange with Interstate 15, but also the building of the Desert Inn Super Arterial and the Las Vegas Beltway.
Today we take those and other vital improvements that began with planning in the late 1980s so much for granted that it seems they were always there.
As reported Monday by the Las Vegas Sun’s Richard N. Velotta, local and regional transportation planners are now envisioning the next big improvement — an interstate rail system that could be operational 20 years from now.
Las Vegas, Reno, Denver, Salt Lake City and Phoenix could all be linked by high-speed train service.
It is a cinch that customers of that service in the 2030s would eventually take that mode of transportation for granted, and come to subconsciously believe, because of its convenience and the need for it, that it was always there.
The planners include Jacob Snow, general manager of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada. He is working with transportation planners in Utah, Colorado and Arizona. They call their newly ratified partnership the Western High-Speed Rail Alliance.
Their alliance follows the logic contained last year in a study produced by the Brookings Institution. The Washington-based think tank encouraged the states of our Intermountain West Region to cooperate on projects that would benefit all of them.
A high-speed rail system connecting Las Vegas with the major cities in those states would certainly have mutual benefits, an increase in tourism among them. Interstate transportation is insufficient in the growing Southwest and Interstate Mountain regions and the timing is right to address that issue.
President Barack Obama supports high-speed rail and there are two proposals — we support the one that would use maglev technology — for a high-speed rail line connecting Las Vegas with Southern California, a prospect that could turn Las Vegas into a rail transportation hub.
The Western High-Speed Rail Alliance has the potential to significantly change our region’s future for the better.
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Maglev is just great. Its construction costs are approximately the same as conventional high-speed rail (which is not cheap), but maglev's much better climbing and turning capabilities, significantly higher acceleration and deceleration rates as well as top speed, reliability and safety make it a far superior system. And on top of that, maglev is considerably cheaper to maintain than conventional high-speed rail.
With a completed Draft EIS and proven steel wheel trains, DesertXpress will create jobs far sooner than Maglev. The Maglev project they are trying to get environmentally cleared only goes 40 miles to Primm -- NOT to Anaheim. They have no money to build it to Primm, let alone to Anaheim, and would need tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to do so. Three public agencies considering maglev completed independent studies that pegged its cost at $100 to $200 million per mile -- which would make it $26 to $52 billion -- not $13 billion. Also there are no existing safety standards in the US for Maglev, this could take years to develop and get approved. The German government, whose taxpayers paid for the development of the maglev technology, has completely abandoned the technology in favor of more high speed rail. The Chinese Government decided not to extend the short (19-mile) line feeding Shanghai Airport; instead, they are building the world's largest high speed rail network. Thirty years ago when Maglev technology was first introduced, it promised speeds never before imagined in rail. Since then, steel wheel has gone through many evolutions and set speed records only a few miles an hour slower than Maglev. High speed trains operate at speeds up to 220 mph. The maglev has never operated anywhere outside of a test run at speeds any faster than that. The trains selected to operate at 150 mph for the first phase of DesertXpress have been certified to run at speeds up to 186 mph. DesertXpress's first phase goes 200 miles into Southern California at no cost to the taxpayers. DesertXpress's second phase to Palmdale will connect with the entire state through its voter-approved high speed rail network.
The next generation high speed rail is the future -- Maglev is dead -- just look at China -- the only country in the world to implement Maglev just ordered 4 billion dollars worth of steel wheel trains.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=n...
And look at Germany -- the country that developed Maglev 30 years ago -- they don't have a system either.
There is no way the Maglev can be profitable at $12B of capital costs and even that huge number is a fraction of what public agencies have estimated it will really cost. China decided not to extend their system because it is a financial disaster. 11 million people drove by Victorville last year on their way to Las Vegas -- it is the natural collection point of all east/west freeways in the Los Angeles basin. The real question is -- who would drive to Anaheim and how will they possibly fit all the parking they would need to make the station work? How is Maglev ever going to be able to stay inside the freeway into Anaheim -- the roads are all built out. They will have to buy up the houses and businesses along the freeway -- never going to happen.