MAG LEV: ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

By Gerald Neily

8/6/99

The main criticism of the Maglev proposal is that it will adversely affect MARC. This is a very legitimate concern, but MARC has some very significant limitations of its own. The important issue is how the Baltimore-Washington region can improve the transportation system as a whole. How can Maglev be incorporated into a comprehensive transportation system and foster an overall improvement to it? Certainly any mode that promises a 15 minute trip from downtown to downtown, with a 150 percent farebox recovery rate must be investigated as a potentially significant tool in the upgrade of the overall transportation system.

MARC has a fairly detailed long range master plan that the MTA prepared a few years ago, which outlines recommended spending for something on the order of $500 million for needed improvements. Most of this money is for non-passenger related improvements to allow MARC to coexist with existing and future freight traffic, particularly on the CSX line, including track improvements and new maintenance facilities. The capacity limitations of the tracks and conflicts with freight are a fundamental problem with MARC.

Another fundamental problem is MARC's high degree of "park and ride" riders. MARC patrons may avoid I-95 and the BW Parkway, particularly the inner city portions, but they still generate a lot of Vehicle Miles of Travel, congestion around stations and parking demand. The huge seas of parking around many MARC stations pose another significant constraint to long term ridership growth.

Still another constraint on MARC is farebox recovery, which like other transit modes, has hovered around 50 percent in recent years. Unlike other transit modes, however, this has happened in spite of healthy ridership growth. It does not appear that the marginal cost of attracting new MARC riders is sufficiently low to provide additional economies of scale for improving efficiency and ridership at the same time. Ridership does dictate frequency of service; the more riders, the more trains, and the less wait between trains. Other than that, however, it appears that the 500th MARC train will be no more efficient and approximately just as expensive to run as the first one.

It's possible that I'm wrong about these assertions. The point is that they should be evaluated to provide a comprehensive framework to determine the potential relationship and impact of Maglev on MARC.

Maglev, on the other hand, allegedly promises a 150 percent farebox recovery rate. This appears to be due to its extremely fast speed, which means trains "turn over" their ridership between Baltimore and Washington in 15 minutes instead of 60 to 70 minutes for MARC and 35 to 45 minutes for AMTRAK. A single Maglev train can make far more trips per day than a conventional train. Moreover, it is possible that the marginal cost of increasing ridership on Maglev may be relatively lower because of greater automation of functions and propulsion in the guideway rather than the vehicles. However, the high farebox recovery may simply be a consequence of Maglev being marketed as a "rich person's" travel mode, to be used only by people who can price their time extremely highly.

The main downside usually cited for Maglev is the inability to make intermediate stops. Stops are planned for BWI Airport and perhaps the New Carrollton or Greenbelt METRO station, but these would serve only dedicated non-stop runs, initially perhaps only linked to downtown Washington, and would not be part of the regular non-stop service between downtown Baltimore and Washington.

The Right Questions:

The main question, of course, is "Is Maglev worth the money?" In answering this question, the billion or so dollars in federal money should be considered "free" (along with a suitable economic multiplier), since these are dollars our region would not see if we don't build Maglev.

The immediate follow-up question is "What does the region get for the money?" This question must not be answered merely for Maglev alone. It must be answered for the entire regional transportation system: Does the money spent on Maglev result in a greater overall improvement to transportation between Baltimore and Washington than money spent on something else?

The entire system must therefore be studied. Does Maglev + MARC + AMTRAK + Highways + Other Things add up to more overall "good" than if Maglev is taken out of the equation and a similarly costly enhancement was made elsewhere.

To answer this question, two areas must be studied in far greater depth than has been considered thus far. One is the overall "supply" and "demand" functions for high speed mass transportation in the Baltimore-Washington corridor. The suggested scenario where Maglev operates at a farbox recovery rate of 150% while MARC coexists with a 50% recovery rate seems unfathomable. There is a segment of the public that is willing to pay much higher prices for only a small improvement in overall performance -- first class air fares and AMTRAK Metroliners come to mind. However, it does not seem to be appropriate to build Maglev solely as a rich person's mode. If the demand for rail travel between Baltimore and Washington is that inelastic, then MARC should merely run conventional Metroliner type trains of their own, perhaps giving riders free drinks and newspapers, and charge high prices for them.

The Maglev study must go much deeper. If the current operating scenario really points to a 150% farebox return (unheard of in the mass transit business), there should be a strong potential to greatly improve the overall efficiency of ALL mass transit in the corridor by diverting a huge number of MARC, AMTRAK and ESPECIALLY highway users to Maglev. Of course, attracting this many riders would require much lower fares and thus a farebox recovery rate lower than 150%, but the overall savings to the region engendered by the efficiencies of Maglev would result in a much greater overall savings. For example, if Maglev could merely get a 100% recovery, the savings from diverting MARC riders would include the entire MARC operating subsidy for that rider. The current subsidies for automobile users could similarly be saved.

This type of analysis is currently proposed under Task 5 of the Maglev Study, "Market Analysis". This needs to be expanded greatly to include the related market supply/demand functions of ALL modes of transportation in the corridor, and the alternative technical capabilities of Maglev to carry higher passenger capacities.

Another important issue related to all this is station area planning. This must be given the utmost attention. if Maglev is to attract its rightful ridership and be fully integrated with other modes, access to the stations must be optimized. Baltimore's Camden Station has good highway access, but very poor local street, transit and pedestrian access. As it now stands, it will take longer to ride light rail less than two miles from Penn Station to Camden Station (18 minutes) than to ride Maglev 40 miles from Baltimore to Washington (15 minutes). There is some potential to improve the currently abysmal local bus connections to Camden Station (currently only one line), but street connections and the location on the periphery of downtown are major roadblocks. Bus access improvements should not be at the expense of other important destinations, or the system as a whole. I-395 is a major impediment to pedestrian access, and walking along Conway Street is very hazardous. (New fences were recently installed at the intersection of Conway and Light Streets which prevent pedestrians from having a direct walk to the Inner Harbor from Camden Station.)

The proposed BWI Station has similarly crucial issues. Should it be located at the airport terminal, using the existing airport land-side access infrastructure (parking, shuttle buses, etc.) or should it be located at the BWI Amtrak/MARC Station where specialized infrastructure could be developed specifically for the needs of Maglev? Could such a station also spawn a large highly dense transit oriented development complex? It is disturbing that Anne Arundel County is not even represented on the Maglev study team to address such crucial questions.

Another issue that should be given special consideration is the role of the bus system in providing feeder access to Maglev. If Maglev provides a very significant travel time savings to commuters, buses may be able to play a major role in access, and thereby overcome the capacity and congestion problems of providing increasingly large park and ride lots. A comprehensive bus transit system in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, organized around the Maglev Stations, could revolutionize all travel in the corridor.

And thus the greatest benefit of conducting a comprehensive Maglev study in the Baltimore-Washington corridor is that it should make the region recognize, once and for all, that broad regional vision and radical new solutions are necessary to solve our transportation problems.