Cal U selected as test site for low-speed maglev train
CALIFORNIA – California University of Pennsylvania’s interest in improving parking and traffic flow, combined with the area’s hilly terrain, has led to its selection as a test site for a $100 million, low-speed magnetic levitation train. “If it works there, it will work anywhere in the county,” U.S. Rep. Frank Mascara (D-Charleroi) said Friday.
Serving as the ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Mascara allocated $2.2 million from the 1998 Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) to study and design a light rail “people mover” to connect the campus with its athletic facilities at Roadman Park and Adamson Stadium.
The people mover was part of Cal U’s transportation improvement plan, which involved closing Third Street to vehicle traffic.
The plan also included building a parking garage to replace a student parking lot, which is accessible only by crossing a set of railroad tracks. A student was struck by a train and killed there several years ago.
After the people mover plan became bogged down in environmental impact studies, the university spent part of the money to buy
buses that are used to shuttle students between the campus and a 340-bed off-campus apartment complex built last year next to the stadium.
Feasibility studies are being conducted for the maglev train, but the necessary funding has not yet been secured, said state Department of Transportation spokesman Kirk Wilson.
“It’s a research and development initiative,” Wilson said. “I don’t think it’s safe to say it’s ready to go. Testing is necessary before determining if it is an effective mode of transportation.”
Mascara said he hopes to include the federal government’s 80 percent share of the project cost in the $250-billion 2003 transportation bill.
He said would meet with the U.S. transportation department’s Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to secure money for the project.
The state has not committed its 20-percent share of the price tag and does not have a construction schedule for the project, Wilson said.
Mascara and Wilson said it would be “difficult” for construction to begin this year.
The project would have to be placed on PennDOT’s 12-year plan to gain state funding, Mascara pointed out.
The FTA provided funding from TEA-21 to General Atomics of San Diego, Calif., to develop low-speed urban magnetic levitation transportation technology, which uses electromagnetic power, instead of wheels, to move rail cars along tracks. The cars levitate and do not touch the tracks.
“There’s no friction. It levitates. There’s no noise,” Mascara said. “I visited one in Germany that went 200 miles an hour. This one (in California) will be low speed.”
He said the project would serve as a test of maglev’s ability to negotiate uneven terrain and operate through seasonal weather changes.
“We have the topography the engineers are looking for and the technology would be useful here,” Cal U President Angelo Armenti Jr. said in a statement.
“Not only will it solve parking and transportation challenges we face on campus, it will bring many visitors to our community to see what it’s all about.”
The Pittsburgh area is competing with two other regions for a high-speed maglev project, which would extend from Greensburg to the Greater Pittsburgh International Airport.