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Maglev Consequences
Magnetically levitated ground transportation, or "maglev," is an
advanced mode of surface high speed transportation whereby a vehicle gliding
above a guide track is suspended, guided, and propelled by magnetic forces.
Because they never touch the guide track causing friction, maglev vehicles can
be designed to travel at extremely high speeds, 500 kilometers per hour (300
miles per hour), or more!
Americans traveled 3.2 trillion passenger kilometers (2 trillion
passenger miles) by car, truck, bus, and public transit, and 9.8 billion
passenger kilometers (6.1 billion passenger miles) on Amtrak. As populations
have grown the traditional systems have become stressed. Congestion on highways
and at airports not only wastes time and fuel and increases pollution, but
constrains mobility to the extent that economic growth and productivity are
adversely affected.
Increased demand. Between 1980 and 1990, with deregulation and consumer
demand for fast inner-city travel leading to lower airline fares, commercial air
traffic has increased by 56 percent. Adding to the congestion and delay is
increased commuter and regional air traffic. Those short distance flights take
valuable landing slots that could be used for larger planes on more profitable,
longer flights. With the maglev vehicles the shorter trips excluding access
time can be cut a lot. With a study of 16 major corridors of travel, less than
300 miles in length, they studied how well the maglev vehicles could help, and
in 10 out of the 16 the time could be cut at least slightly. Als ...