A Positively Negative Reaction

Pat Cloonan had a nice story in the News last week about Maglev Inc., which has its offices and R&D center right in Our Fair City. It seems the U.S. Navy has contracted with Maglev to use its equipment to scan recovered artifacts from the U.S.S. Monitor.

Previously, Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh had asked Maglev to scan images of dinosaur fossils. Pretty neat, high-tech stuff being done right in our backyard! (And if you were lucky enough to attend, you got to see it up close at last night's open house.)

But something about it bugs your Almanac editor. After 15 years in existence, Maglev Inc. still has time to scan Civil War cannon and dinosaur bones. That makes me suspect that it isn't doing a whole lot of work on magnetic-levitation trains, is it?

It also reinforces the nagging suspicion that I've had that maglev in Picksberg (the concept in general, not necessarily Maglev Inc. in particular) is yet another redevelopment boondoggle. We're building Skybus for the 21st century.

Let me take that back. With Skybus, we were able to ride around South Park on the little demonstration system. We haven't even had a public demonstration of maglev trains in Western Pennsylvania yet.

For crying out loud, Kennywood can get a roller-coaster built in the span of a few months, and even PennDOT can build a bridge in about 18. Shouldn't we at least be puttering around McKeesport and Duquesne on a maglev test route by now? It's not like the old mill sites lack vacant land, and I'd pay a buck or two to ride some hotshot supertrain of the future.

I can't seem to find anything on either Maglev Inc.'s website or the Pennsylvania High Speed Maglev Project website about just how much money has been spent on this over the last decade or so. My hunch is that most of the funding is coming from county, state and federal taxpayers; it seems to me that someone ought to demand an accounting of the dough, seeing as how Pennsylvania residents are hardly undertaxed.

For those of you who hear the term maglev, and still wonder what the hell it is, here's a half-vast explanation of magnetic-levitation trains, in a nutshell: You take an elevated track with high-powered electromagnets, and then build a train to ride on the track that has high-powered electromagnets of its own built in.

Because opposing magnets repel each other, you can make the train float and move back and forth by pulsing the magnets on and off. You can also make the train accelerate very smoothly and stop very quickly, and because the train doesn't actually touch the track, you don't need conventional brakes.

Frankly, it's a very expensive solution to the transportation problem, because it requires a lot of infrastructure. It also will take a lot of electricity to propel the trains. Theoretically, if clean nuclear power were developed, the electricity would be cheap to produce, and the trains themselves would create very little air or noise pollution. That's a concept obviously worth studying, but until we have a cheap, clean source of the amount of electricity needed to drive maglev trains, we're wasting time.

And money ... though of course, it isn't the only transportation project in Western Pennsylvania that's spending a lot of money without much in the way of results.

Allow me to digress for a moment. Julie Mickens of City Paper (who recently outed herself as an Almanac reader) wrote this week about the amount of money that Port Authority is spending to run Pittsburgh's light-rail system over to the North Side.

As Mickens points out, the new extension is basically just going to serve the stadiums (stadia?). It won't really serve any of the major population centers or employers like CCAC and Allegheny General Hospital. So it's going to cost $393 million to allow people from Mount Lebanon, Dormont and elsewhere the pleasure of riding to Steelers and Pirates games in air conditioned comfort, without changing trains.

But the extension will provide precious little traffic relief for people who work in dahntahn Picksberg or who live on the North Side or in the North Hills. No, we're not building a rail link to Cranberry, Ross Township or any of the other booming northern suburbs; or to Squirrel Hill, Swissvale and Monroeville to remove the huge traffic jams on the Parkway East. We're building it to the stadiums, to make it easier to get to PNC Park and watch the Pirates lose almost, but not quite, 100 games per year.

On the other hand, at least we'll have something tangible after spending $393 million on what Peter Leo famously called our three-hole, three-stop, Par 3 miniature subway. (We'll have a fourth hole.)

The first maglev train proposals in Pittsburgh were floated (no pun intended) back in 1987. Put another way, today's college freshmen had just been born when this idea was first discussed. What do we have to show for it? (No, scanning cannon and dinosaur fossils doesn't count.)

And, come to think of it, how much money has been spent on maglev research? I dare you to find an audited accounting statement, a profit-and-loss report, or even a budget proposal on either of those maglev websites. Your Uncle Charley who runs a lumberyard wouldn't accept that from the guy who does his taxes, and you wouldn't accept it from the Port Vue borough council. Neither should we be accepting it from quasi-public organizations.

I have no problem with doing scientific research for the mere sake of scientific inquiry; it's how some of our greatest discoveries have been made. Still, there ought to be some accountability, and at some point, even researchers in the most theoretical fields should have to produce something useful. It's called "publish or perish." (And no, press releases and websites don't count, either.)

Finally, to my knowledge, which is admittedly nowhere near complete, there is only one working, public maglev line in the world, in Shanghai, China, which connects an airport with a downtown business district. But China's population is considerably denser than Pennsylvania's. (Even though some of us are plenty dense. Rimshot.) There are also maglev test systems in Germany and Japan, but I haven't heard that either country has a working public system. (Of course, they have had demonstration tracks open, which is more than we can say for Pittsburgh.)

Until I see some real proof that magnetic-levitation trains are practical in Western Pennsylvania, I'd much rather see the money, time and research being invested into something we could use. Like conventional rapid transit to the North Hills or eastern suburbs.

Or maybe we should take the money and beautify the Par 3 subway. I'm thinking a windmill and some of those little plastic flags would be appropriate.

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To Do This Weekend: Speaking of dubious technologies, the 21st annual Pittsburgh Record Convention is being held at the Radisson Hotel in Green Tree on Sunday. This is nothing but vinyl records --- 78s, 45s and LPs --- no CDs or videos. Admission is $3. Call (412) 331-5021. ... Closer to home, Steel Valley High School hosts its seventh-annual marching band competition at 6 p.m. tomorrow on the William V. Campbell Athletic Field on West Run Road in Munhall. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for students and senior citizens. ... The rock and blues band Boss Diablo plays the Versailles American Legion, 4919 Third St., Versailles, at 9:30 tonight. Call (412) 751-5760.