Category: Commentary/Editorial || By

For land's sake, why won't the federal government's unnatural fixation with maglev in Pittsburgh die?

Courtesy of Chris Briem's Null Space, we note that Uncle Sugar is finally soliciting applications for up to $90 million in grants to "magnetic levitation (maglev) projects" including the proposed high-speed Pittsburgh-to-wherever system that's been on the drawing board since I was in elementary school.

As Prof. Briem notes, if George Romero were into transportation, he'd build zombie maglev systems. Can't you see them, roaming the countryside, groaning "T-R-A-A-A-A-A-A-INS"?

As noted before by Tube City Almanac, despite spending millions of dollars in taxpayer money over the past 20 years, magnetic levitation proponents haven't constructed so much as a kiddie ride at Kennywood.

One of the few commercial magnetic levitation trains in existence in the world runs at 20 percent capacity. And two of Germany's largest industrial powerhouses scrapped further development of maglev earlier this year. This should lead a reasonable person to conclude that maglev is a solution in search of a problem.

With the credit and bond markets cratering, it seems unlikely that any large sums of money will be forthcoming to complete a U.S. maglev system.

. . .

Make no mistake about it: $90 million is a lot of money. But maglev costs about $50 million per mile.

Ninety million doesn't get you from Dravosburg to Duquesne.

What should really frost your cupcakes regarding maglev is that $90 million would go a long way toward helping repair and upgrade current transportation systems.

According to the California Department of Transportation, constructing a bridge costs up to $400 per square foot.

A span like the McKeesport-Duquesne Bridge is about 362 feet long and 36 feet wide. Even assuming that demolition and engineering work would at least double the cost, you could build three or four new McKeesport-Duquesne Bridges for $90 million.

Or --- and this is even more relevant --- how far would $90 million go toward re-booting public transportation in the Pittsburgh metro area?

. . .

As Oct. 16's cartoon pointed out, the current contract negotiations between the Port Authority and the transit union are going nowhere. New reports suggest that the talks are completely stalemated, and that PAT is considering a lockout that would shut down all bus and trolley service.

This would be a disaster for a lot of people who are students, senior citizens, or on "welfare-to-work" programs in the Mon Valley.

But I'm strongly convinced that the only solution to the Port Authority's current problems --- uncoordinated transit routes, half-empty buses, escalating labor costs --- is blowing up the agency and starting over. If a shutdown gets us there, maybe it's a good idea.

. . .

Despite what's been suggested by the letters to the editor of the Daily News (and strident op-eds in its parent newspaper), privatization of public transportation is not going to happen. No metropolitan area has a privately operated transit system.

It's not creeping socialism that forced public ownership of transit; it's the fact that public transportation doesn't make money. If it did, private industry would be clamoring for the chance to take over Port Authority, Philadelphia's SEPTA and other agencies.

Transit is a money-loser around the world. Outside of a few big metro areas, public transit serves sparsely populated areas, it's labor and capital intensive, and it generally serves economically depressed populations, who by definition can't spend a lot of money on fares.

Public transportation only makes sense if you accept the idea that providing transportation for the poor, elderly and disabled is a public good. (If you don't, then you're probably beyond help.)

Providing for the public good (or as the preamble to the U.S. Constitution puts it, "promote the general welfare") is a job for government, not private industry.

. . .

The main problem with Port Authority is that it's built on the bones of the old Pittsburgh Railways Co. (which was in bankruptcy from 1937 to 1951) and the 32 private bus companies (most of them also financially feeble) that the transit agency took over in 1964.

The labor contracts are designed to be competitive with steel industry jobs that no longer exist; the route map is designed to serve an urban core whose commercial importance has been eclipsed by the suburbs.

And despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of people now live just outside the Allegheny County border, in communities like Cranberry Township, Peters Township, Murrysville and North Huntingdon Township, Port Authority doesn't provide them with any service.

Instead, suburban residents get service ranging from excellent to honky-tonk from things like the Mid-Mon Valley Transit Authority and Westmoreland Transit.

. . .

If someone wants to show some political leadership (Marc Gergely and Bill Kortz ... are you reading this?) they'd suggest abolishing the Port Authority and the suburban agencies and creating one truly useful regional transit agency, with new routes and union contracts.

• Why shouldn't McKeesport buses go to Norwin Hills Shopping Center?


• Why couldn't the T be extended from South Hills Village down to Southpointe, for instance, instead of the North Shore stadiums?


• Why couldn't commuter trains run on existing rails (not maglev) from Pittsburgh to Latrobe?

Those are ideas that would offer immediate benefits to the entire Pittsburgh area.

Instead, we're stuck with things like the Mon Valley Progress Council, which does almost nothing but beat the drum for the Mon-Fayette Expressway --- a highway that no one can afford to build for a wasteful, polluting method of transportation.

And we're stuck with a federal government that insists on stuffing another $90 million down the maglev rat hole.

. . .

Ninety million dollars for a maglev system that will probably never be built. Good grief.

If Uncle Sam has $90 million to spend on electric trains, the model train club will take it.

For $90 million we'll build McKeesport a train layout that will blow your mind.

Heck, for that kind of money, who needs electric trains? We could build tiny steam engines that run on real coal. That would support local coal-mining and manufacturing jobs.

It's no dumber than maglev. Maybe I need to start writing a grant application.