It started when Baltimore Sun columnist Michael Dresser referred to proponents of magnetic levitation trains as “dreamers.” This characterization offended Kevin C. Coates, executive director of the North American Maglev Transport Institute, and a correspondence ensued. Coates argues that maglev’s low operating costs are a critical advantage. Dresser allows that maglev may be the superior technology (“That’s not a big stretch”), but questions its feasibility, especially in developed corridors.
We have a lot of existing rail infrastructure — much of it decrepit and woefully inefficient — occupying right-of-way that is, for now, the only game in town. Maglev can be the best technology in the world, but without a strip of land a few yards wide and hundreds of miles long, it’s no more than a fantasy. High-speed variations on existing technologies that could potentially share the existing right-of-way have a huge advantage.
Finally, Dresser asks, “It’s been a long time since the United States adopted a paradigm-shifting transportation technology. Could Maglev be the next one?” While still not convinced that maglev is the ultimate answer, he concludes that it’s a debate worth having. Link to full story in The Baltimore Sun.
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