Maglev

Originally Posted on January 16, 2008 Last Updated on February 20, 2008

The Maglev project has been in the works for nearly a decade. (Have a look at their website’s design to see just how long this project’s been going for. 🙂 ) I had first heard of it around the turn of the century (yeah, you can say that now), everyone was all hyped up for this train that had something to do magnets and was presumably super fast.

But how fast is super fast? Downtown to Monroeville in 11 minutes, including stops. Downtown to the Airport in 8 minutes. To put that in perspective, the fastest trip from Downtown to Monroeville by bus that I could find took 56 minutes, with 1 hour 15 minutes more like the norm (and that’s over two buses.) The 28x Bus from Downtown to the Airport takes about 40 minutes.

For the first time, really, Pittsburgh would have an alternative means of transportation (to cars, that is) that is so much more efficient and fast that driving a car would seem a little ridiculous (the same Downtown to Airport trip takes around 23 minutes by car.)

Some interesting stats from the Maglev website, Pittsburgh is within 500 miles of:

28 of the 50 top US Metro Retail markets
51% of the US population
50% of Canada’s population

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Discussion

julie 16 Jan 2008

Mike took a co-op with Union Switch and Signal back in college to work on the MagLev….that quickly went nowhere. Any idea if this will actually come to fruition anytime in our lifetime? It would really be fantastic. Pittsburgh needs something to put us on the map.

In an aside, saw the link to Anna Dubrovsky’s site on Olivia’s page, it really looks great! It’s one of my favorites of yours.

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Laurence Blow 16 Jan 2008

Pittsburgh would be an ideal place to demonstrate maglev’s speed, grade-climbing and all-weather performance. I think it’ll continue to get federal study money and will be in contention for the first construction project in the country in a few years.

Speaking as a maglev believer, I must point out that there are several other U.S. projects going forward, too. Their home pages can be seen at http://www.usmaglevcoalition.com under “U.S. Maglev Projects.”

Larry Blow

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nathan 16 Jan 2008

Yeah, Julie, Anna’s site was a blast to build. I’ve got a few more in that style…not that they look like Anna’s, just that it’s kind of a new direction in Web design I’ve been trying to go for. Too many shiny buttons around these days…

But I have heard recently that Maglev is back underway, or even that it never stopped, but that it generally takes a long time, somewhere just between forever and an eternity, to get things like this going. Also, we’re competing with Baltimore/DC for the project. I like to think of us as being worthy, but Pittsburgh vs. Baltimore/DC, well, I don’t know, they’ve got the Redskins and Ravens vs. just our Steelers….

And thanks for the link, Larry, I’ll definitely check that out. I would love to see Maglev systems all over the country. Apparently a trip from Pittsburgh to Philly would only take 2 hours.

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