Monday, August 01, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Highway bill contains $45 million for LV-Primm high-speed train

WASHINGTON -- Plans for a high-speed train line from Las Vegas to Primm were revitalized Friday with a $45 million allocation from Congress.

Sponsors of a magnetically levitated train said they have received smaller sums of government support to keep the effort alive but on a slow track.

The $45 million infusion, part of a major transportation bill passed on Friday, was seen as a new shot-in-the-arm.

"We've obviously made a huge comeback," said Neil Cummings, president of the American Magline Group, a private partner backing the effort.

"With this money, we'll be ready to go," he said. "We'll be ready to start construction in three years."

"Maglev" trains hover without wheels, propelling passengers along magnetized tracks at more than 240 miles per hour. A trip from Las Vegas to Primm could take 12 minutes.

The 40-mile stretch is seen as the first leg on a route that could eventually extend to Anaheim, Calif.

Advocates say maglev would ease congestion along Interstate 15, eventually serving travelers out of the proposed Ivanpah airport and luring Southern California gamblers and tourists on a trip that would take 86 minutes.

Cummings said the allocation would accomplish four key goals.

He said the California-Nevada Super Speed Train Commission, a consortium of supportive investors, would complete an environmental impact statement for the entire corridor, finish engineering and design elements on the Primm segment, develop a financial plan and work to obtain safety certifications from the Federal Railroad Administration.

Twenty-five years in the making, the $12 billion maglev project has continuously faced economic hurdles.

The project suffered a setback in 2001 when the government chose maglev projects in Baltimore and Pittsburgh to receive $1 billion in priority federal backing.

Western lawmakers lobbied for funding to support a project on the opposite coast, winning over Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, the influential chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Boosters touted the California-Nevada project as the least expensive of proposed U.S. maglev initiatives.

"It's a straight shot" along Interstate 15, said Richann Johnson, executive assistant of the two-state commission.

"I believe the maglev train will be the future of travel between places like Southern Nevada and Southern California," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said. "Airports are overburdened with short haul flights and we must start reinvesting in train travel."

Johnson called the additional funding "a vote of confidence from Congress." But Cummings said generating money for construction remains an enormous challenge.

The highway bill allocates 50 percent of available federal funding to the Las Vegas-Primm project and the other half to a nondesignated project east of the Mississippi River.

"It just demonstrates that there is a (maglev) market in the United States," she said.