The US government said on Friday it cancelled an environmental review of a long-delayed proposed high-speed rail project between Washington and Baltimore, and scrapped $26m (R468.1m) in grants, effectively ending the project.
The transportation department said it was rescinding funds for the proposed $20bn (R360.17bn) Baltimore-Washington Superconducting Magnetic Levitation (Maglev) project, after “nearly a decade of poor planning, significant community opposition, tremendous cost overruns, and nothing to show for it”.
The proposal aimed to run trains powered by magnetic forces at speeds up to 500km/h, either underground in deep tunnels or elevated on viaducts.
The developer, Northeast Maglev, criticised the decision to cancel the environmental review, calling it the “missed opportunity of a generation to deploy the fastest and safest ground transportation system in the world,” that “further cements America’s transportation infrastructure technological inferiority”.
It noted that since its inception, the privately-led initiative had invested nearly $158m (R2.84bn) in the project.
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) said it will not prepare a final environmental analysis, saying the project is no longer feasible. An environmental review, started in 2016, has been on pause since 2021.
The FRA said the project faces “unresolvable significant effects to federal agencies, federal property, and critical agency infrastructure and operations during project construction and operation”, including the defence department, Nasa and other national security and government agencies.
China has been using Maglev technology for more than two decades on a limited scale. Shanghai has a short Maglev line running from one of its airports.
Last month, the US transportation department cancelled $4bn (R72.03bn) in federal grants for California's ambitious but much-delayed high-speed rail project, prompting the state to sue.
The legal dispute added another hurdle to the 16-year effort to link Los Angeles and San Francisco by a three-hour train ride, a project that would deliver the fastest passenger rail service in the US.
Reuters
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