Maryland, My Maryland

Maryland's Train to nowhere going nowhere. From the Bay Journal, Not so fast: Maryland high-speed train project hits skids.

One of the main selling points for constructing a $13 billion magnet-propelled train line between Washington, DC, and Baltimore is speed. Proponents envision levitating train cars going 300 mph and higher, reducing the travel time between the two cities to a mere 15 minutes.

But those go-fast ambitions have collided with the go-slow realities of acquiring state and federal permits. The mounting difficulties threaten to derail the high-profile project.

First came the Federal Railroad Administration’s decision in 2019 to pause the five-year, $28 million study of the project’s potential environmental impacts, citing the need for additional engineering and design details. After work on the study restarted, the FRA initiated a second pause in 2021 without finalizing a preferred route.

Nearly three years into the effort’s current suspension, an FRA spokeswoman told the Bay Journal in April that “there are no updates available.”. The study must be completed and federally approved for the project to move forward.

Now comes another big wrench in the works: Northeast Maglev, the private company leading the project, withdrew its application in late December for a water-quality certification from the Maryland Department of the Environment. The move came after MDE indicated it was poised to reject the request, pointing to a bevy of missing details, such as finalized design plans and stormwater discharge totals.

Northeast Maglev didn’t make a representative available to comment for this report. But the company has notified MDE that it intends to reapply after it acquires more engineering and design information.

Some environmental groups, including the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, have thrown their support behind the project. They say the high-speed train will result in a net win for the environment by removing millions of polluting car trips from area roadways, leading to improved air quality.

But many conservationists remain opposed. Among them: the Anacostia Watershed Community Advisory Committee, Sierra Club’s Maryland chapter, Beaverdam Creek Watershed Watch, the Maryland Ornithological Society and the Friends of Patuxent Research Reserve. They greeted the permit withdrawal announcement with cautious relief.

“We were very excited,” said Rhonda Kranz, president of the Maryland Coalition for Responsible Transit, an anti-maglev community group. “We spent so much time going to hearings and writing a 600-page report. They can still come back with this, but I think it was a real win.”

Critics have raised myriad objections to the project.

Although the train itself doesn’t directly emit greenhouse gases, opponents contend it would still need enormous amounts of electricity derived from fossil fuels. They also take issue with Northeast Maglev’s preferred route, which would slice through several federal properties, including portions of the Patuxent Research Reserve. And with an expected average fare price of $60, they say it would be a viable option only for the wealthiest commuters.

“At its core, our big concern with the maglev project is it requires extensive amounts of new infrastructure to do basically the same thing that MARC [Maryland Area Regional Commuter] and Amtrak are currently doing,” said Kyle Hart, Mid-Atlantic program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association.

The train’s special U-shaped guideway would run mostly through tunnels bored up to 320 feet below the surface. About 70% of the 40-mile route would be underground, but it would emerge above ground as much as 150 feet overhead along “viaducts” perched on concrete piers. The service would operate between dedicated new stations at Mount Vernon Square in DC and the Cherry Hill neighborhood in Baltimore, with a single stop at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

That's a lot of boring. 

Japan, which pioneered maglev technology in the 1970s, has pledged $5 billion toward the U.S. construction project. Backers hope to eventually extend the route to New York City. A full trip between there and DC, roughly 200 miles, would take just an hour, they say.

Maryland’s water-quality certification process is triggered whenever a new project is expected to discharge polluted stormwater into waterways protected by the federal Clean Water Act. Northeast Maglev’s permit application identifies seven Chesapeake Bay tributaries to be affected, including the Anacostia, Little Patuxent and Severn rivers.

The project would require about 450 acres of trees to be cleared. About 22 acres of wetlands and nearly 13,000 linear feet of streams would be impacted. Northeast Maglev told MDE it would use state-approved treatment practices during construction and in the installation of stormwater facilities to ensure that the discharges meet water-quality standards.

In a Dec. 22 letter to Northeast Maglev, Danielle Spendiff, head of MDE’s regulatory division, wrote that even after receiving additional details from Northeast Maglev, the agency still “does not have a reasonable assurance that this project will comply with water quality standards.”

She pointed to several flaws in the developer’s request. Those included that the project’s layout remains conceptual, efforts to address floodwaters with underground storage may be “challenging or infeasible,” and there are scant details on how sensitive species, such as freshwater mussels, will be impacted.

Less than a week later, Northeast Maglev notified the agency that it was pulling the application but would “reapply when the project documents are detailed enough to address MDE’s comments.”

Spendiff replied that “it is strongly recommended (although not required)” that Northeast Maglev wait until the federal environmental impact study resumes and there is more certainty surrounding the preferred route.

“I read that as, ‘Please don’t waste our resources,’” said Dan Woomer, a past president of the Coalition for Responsible Transit. His organization, he added, supports enhancements to MARC, Amtrak and other public transportation options to help relieve the region’s congestion.

It is unclear when or if the federal environmental impact study will restart. The effort has run out of federal funding, and any further work would require additional outlays, said Nora Corasaniti of the Maryland Department of Transportation in a September 2023 email to state Democratic Del. Nicole A. Williams of Prince George’s County, who had requested an update on the project.

I find it somewhat ironic that the project seems to be stalled by environmental concerns.