Downtown Maglev station needs to move back to Phase 2

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement has just been released for the 300 mph, $10-billion-plus Magnetic Levitation train system from Washington to Baltimore, and wow, have they made a shambles of the plans for the Baltimore Station! The only rational thing that can be done now is to end the project's Phase One at BWI Marshall Airport and save Baltimore for the future, when clearer heads may prevail.

Proposed Downtown Maglev station (in yellow) would wipe out two large modern Pratt Street buildings, much of the Convention Center, the historic Otterbein Church and the Federal Reserve Bank. 

Downtown station alternative

The proposed plan for the station underneath Downtown Baltimore is shown above. It calls for the demolition of the Garmatz Federal Building, 17-story Bank of America building, historic Otterbein Church, the Federal Reserve Bank complex and much of the Convention Center in order to create a huge hole in the ground for the underground station. The hole covers such an extensive area because the planners insist that the station must be built on an angle that is not aligned with the north-south downtown street grid. This angle will enable the line to be pointed to a future extension northeastward toward Philadelphia and New York. Since Maglev is built for such quick acceleration and speed, its curves must be smooth and seldom.

The trains will also be long, which calls for large stations. Just recently, they adjusted their design specs to expand the trains from 12 to 16 cars totaling 1300 feet in length. This would accommodate larger seats and even restrooms. Apparently, the designers are preparing for a future of Maglev trains criss-crossing the entire country and even competing with airlines for lengthy trips. So Maglev trains and stations would be almost three times as long as the Baltimore Metro, over four times as long as light rail and a whopping six and a half times as long as the defunct Red Line.

Alternate Cherry Hill Maglev elevated station and site for 5000 parking spaces

Cherry Hill station alternative

If all that downtown destruction seems crazy, the planners have also developed an alternate plan for a station in Cherry Hill. This one is elevated instead of underground, and requires only the demolition of large low-rise warehouses and commercial space to provide 5000 decked parking spaces. According to the planners, this station would save an estimated $1.18 billion compared to the downtown plan. Saving that much money and demolition is sufficient for the planners to now conclude that putting the station under downtown just is not worth it. The project sponsor, an international corporate consortium, has recommended that the Cherry Hill station should be built instead of the Downtown station.

 

The biggest challenge for the Cherry Hill option is that raising the tracks up out of the ground to an elevated station requires very long grades. To the south of the Cherry Hill station, Patapsco Avenue and Annapolis Road would need to be rebuilt and raised approximately twenty feet so that Maglev can be accommodated in a trench underneath. To the north of the station between Westport and its waterfront, the tracks would be elevated on a 62 foot high bridge above Kloman Street.

Plan and profile drawings for elevated Westport extension north of the proposed Cherry Hill station. The huge I-95/395 elevated interchange is shown on the plan view photo at top-right but is only labeled but not shown on the profile drawing underneath

But regardless of how that might impact the Westport neighborhood and its recently announced new waterfront development plan, the most insurmountable problem lies just north of that point where Maglev would confront Interstate 95. Shown above is the plan and profile sheet for the Maglev line adjacent to Westport. The profile diagram shows the vehicle guideway at an elevation of 22.96 meters (75 feet), above ground that is about 4 meters (13 feet) above sea level. Interstate 95 is on the right end of this diagram, but its elevation profile is conveniently not shown. So how would the elevated Maglev line get past I-95, whose elevation is about 54 feet for the thru lanes and 68 feet for the adjacent northbound off-ramp flyover to I-395? And how could Maglev then dive back down from this height into the earth north of I-95 in order to get down into a tunnel under downtown?

The plan and profile sheets don't show any of this. In contrast to the meticulous attention which the plans devote to the overall alignment of the Downtown station alternative, the Cherry Hill station alternative leads to nothing except futility. This looks painfully like a fatal flaw.

Going back to BWI and forward toward the northeast

The differences between the Downtown and Cherry Hill station plans could not be more stark. Spatially, downtown is and always has been the heart, the centerpiece and the focal point of the Baltimore area. But physically, the contrast of the plans' impacts is just the opposite. The Downtown alternative calls for massive destruction and digging a huge crater, tearing the heart apart.

Fortunately, there exists a common means of identifying feasible station alternatives. That would be to define the entire range of possible track alignments northeastward through the city. But that task has thus far been a void in the planning process.

Instead, the process has had a very counterproductive bias to focus on possible station sites in south Baltimore and south downtown. But the best station sites are most likely on the opposite side of downtown toward the northeast. These sites would require a longer and thus more expensive Maglev line in the short run, but the total project distance to Philly and New York is fixed. 

We thus do not know the entire range of feasible Baltimore station sites. For a project of this magnitude, this is a conspicuous failure. The report even laments the alignment of Baltimore's downtown street grid and the lack of streets on angles, in contrast to Washington, where angled New York Avenue was selected for the station, which resulted in far less digging and destruction. But Baltimore does indeed have such angular streets, most notably Fayette and Gay Streets toward Oldtown and the northeast. (See blog post on Post Office Maglev station). Those streets and areas must be studied, even if that means starting over.

In the meantime, the Maglev project can keep going with BWI Marshall Airport as an interim end of the line from Washington, DC. This station location may seem limited, but it has great potential as a true focal point for Baltimore's south and southwest suburbs. New Maglev oriented development could be planned around the BWI stations to create the same kind of urban center that Crystal City provides to support Reagan National Airport in Arlington. The light rail line from Downtown Baltimore to BWI could be given major upgrades such as express service, track and signal improvements, and new transit oriented development at key stations to strengthen the connections and take maximum advantage of Maglev.

Probably the best thing about the Maglev project is its showcase of the advanced Japanese technology. The project sponsors have a tremendous incentive to present it well, to sell it to the rest of the nation and even the world. Maryland and Baltimore will be where this can happen, so we need to take maximum advantage of it.

So let's give the go-ahead for the Maglev consortium to build a smaller and less expensive project where it can be done right, from Washington to BWI Airport. And then let's immediately begin work on Phase Two to a Baltimore station that will work for us and for everyone else. Comments on the plans can be submitted to MDOT until April 22.