Top 10 Letters

*1*
Rachel DiCarlo’s slam of the proposed Baltimore-Washington MagLev Project, Magnetic Repulsion, is full of errors, misstatements, and erroneous conclusions. It is unfortunate that DiCarlo refuses to either consult with MagLev experts at the Maryland Department of Transportation or its consultants, or even do a cursory review of the widely published Draft Environmental Impact Statement to learn the true facts about this project.

The article says that the MagLev fare one-way between Washington and Baltimore would cost $48. In fact, the one-way cost on MagLev between Baltimore and Washington would be $27.60 and for monthly users it would be $13.80. Between Camden Yards and BWI Airport, the cost would be $5.75 and between BWI Airport and Union Station $11.50. Quite competitive with existing fares on MARC and Amtrak.

DiCarlo also suggests that the total market for MagLev is very small because she considered only the commuter market. In fact, there are a large number of trips when airport, business, and social trips as well as commuter trips are considered. The MagLev study used Origin Destination trip data provided by Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCog) and Baltimore Metropolitan Council (BMC) who invest millions of dollars each year to develop very high quality traffic databases that are used to plan all the transport infrastructure of the Baltimore-Washington Metroplex including the MagLev Project.

In 2020 it is estimated that there will be a total of just over one million trips each day, longer than 7 miles, in the Baltimore-Washington Corridor. Baltimore Washington International Airport and its immediate hinterland alone will attract 300,000 trips per day from the Washington and Baltimore regions. There are expected to be nearly 100,000 trips per day between Washington and Baltimore. The MagLev market share of the long-distance trip market is estimated at 5 percent compared to 9 percent by transit and 86 percent by auto. Clearly a lot of people already travel by transit in the corridor and MagLev will attract more.

With respect to specific markets, commuters will only make up 20 percent of MagLev passengers. The BWI airport MagLev ridership will be over 30 percent of the MagLev users. The bulk of MagLev users are expected to be tourists, business people, and BWI air passengers. In terms of trips to the airport, MagLev is estimated to have a market share of 13 percent. This is well in line with the existing 18 percent market share obtained by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) Metro service to Reagan National Airport. It also fits in well with comparisons of rail access at airports in North America and Europe.

The computer market research techniques used in the MagLev travel surveys examined not just the portion of the trip on a MagLev train but rather the total trip from, say, home to work to determine choice of travel in terms of both their existing mode as well as MagLev. All factors affecting a trip (e.g., time, cost, access, egress, car parking cost, fare, etc.) by existing mode and by MagLev were included in the survey. To ensure the reasonableness and fairness of the survey, not only the very best techniques were adopted by the study team, but the work was mentored by a peer review panel. The peer review panel was led by Professor Eric Miller of Toronto University, one of North America’s leading academics on demand modeling. He was supported by 12 other leading experts in demand modeling and financial analysis from academia, the transportation industry, and the investment banking community. This group reviewed the survey and gave advice on the market research methods and instruments.

Wendell Cox is quoted by DiCarlo as saying that an 18 minute MagLev trip could easily become an hour and fifteen minutes between several upscale Baltimore neighborhoods and Union Station, and through Union Station to a final destination in the District of Columbia.

In our analysis, we estimated trip time in the future comparing trip time on MagLev with driving between Towson in the Baltimore area and Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. Driving between Towson and Dupont Circle would require 109 minutes while the MagLev total trip time, counting time on the MagLev train, access to the MagLev station, waiting for the train, walking to metro rail, the metro rail trip, and the walk to the destination, would be 68 minutes. Between BWI Airport and Dupont Circle the total driving time would be 71 minutes and total MagLev time would be 40 minutes.

Experience has shown that a fixed-link system is capable of attracting trips from both city center and suburbs if appropriate parking facilities are provided at the station.

In addition to faster travel time by MagLev, it is important to note that MagLev will operate every 10 minutes in the peak and every 20 minutes in the off-peak which is virtually on-demand as compared to the sparser service offered on MARC and Amtrak.

DiCarlo ends her article by slamming not only MagLev but the estimates for the London-to-Paris Eurostar project, citing 9 million riders in 2001 compared to a projected 15 million riders annually. In fact, the forecast was based on having a high-speed link from the channel tunnel to Paris and London. The link to London was never built.

We would advise DiCarlo to review the facts, talk to the experts, and read the published reports before coming to the wrong conclusions and citing erroneous facts and figures.

–Jack Kinstlinger
Chairman Emeritus
KCI Technologies, Inc.

Rachel DiCarlo responds: First, the fares: I wrote that “a ticket on the MagLev would cost $48.” What I meant to say, but didn’t, was that a “roundtrip” ticket would be $48. But even this would have been inaccurate. As Jack Kinstlinger says, the MagLev one-way costs $27.60–meaning that a roundtrip ticket would actually be $55.20. Which is almost five times as much as a ticket on the MARC commuter train. I regret the error, but my larger point, that the MagLev is priced far above existing transit costs, remains, and is even bolstered.

It’s not surprising that Kinstlinger feels so strongly that Baltimore and Washington need a MagLev. While his company KCI, isn’t eligible to compete for the final design contract if funding is approved, KCI, along with another company, Parsons Brinckerhoff, served as the prime consultants for the draft environment impact statement for the MagLev, according to Maryland Department of Transportation spokesman Erin Henson. If the project moves forward, both companies have been approved by the Maryland Board of Public Works to complete the final environmental impact statement–a more detailed version of the draft statement–for the project. This means they will be given money to study potential MagLev corridors, including what trees, streams, and houses might be in the way, survey the impact MagLev may have on particular communities, and determine how the MagLev could be built.

The reality of mass transit is that it is a money loser which is only viable in a few densely populated places. Baltimore already has two rail lines which run to the airport–the MARC train and the Light Rail. The latter is a disaster both in terms of money lost and ridership. True, MagLev will run to the airport faster and more often. But the question is: Why would a person haul his luggage onto a train, pass through security, ride the train, and then take a shuttle from the train stop to the airport when he could spend the same money and get door-to-door airport shuttle service?

The reality that Kinstlinger and others fail to grasp is that rail transit is a mode of transportation that the market has largely rejected.

*2*
Larry Miller is right about the United Nations in Well, It Was a Good Idea in ’46: This once-respectable institution, which I was taught to respect and revere, has become a gentlemen’s club for barbarians of late.

The real trouble with the United Nations is that it’s crawling with Diplomats! You send in people genetically imprinted to defuse and avoid conflict in order to establish whether or not conflict is merited.

Kofi Annan’s myopia is neither new nor unexpected. Pacifism really only works well against other pacifists.

–Bob McGovern

*3*
Back in 1965, when someone suggested to LBJ that he get the United Nations involved in Vietnam, the president said, “The U.N. couldn’t pour piss from a boot if the instructions were written on the heel.” Some things never change, particularly from the viewpoint of the boys from Texas.

–Charlie Talmadge

*4*
I’m a retired Marine, my kid (okay, at 38 he’s no kid)is a serving Marine officer. He’s been to Iraq and is scheduled to head back. Larry Miller expressed the feelings of every past, present, and future Marine. Those kids surrounding Falluja are still wondering why the hell they were pulled out. They may be only 20 or 21-year-olds, but they understand what they were there to do and why it needed to be done–and they are still wondering why they weren’t allowed to do it.

They also understand that when they eventually do go in and do what they should have been allowed to do, it will cost them a higher price in their own blood–not unlike the constant cease fires we put up with in Vietnam. If we don’t intend to win this damn war (and I agree we need to win it) then we should get of there.

–Vince Vitale

*5*
In Little Red Corvette, Hugh Hewitt forgets to mention that John Kerry’s Lycra outfit exactly matched the colors of his bike.

–Tina Harrower

*6*
I met Senator Ted Kennedy while I was an engineering undergraduate at UMass Amherst. I believe it was 1991 or 1992, and he had come to see a presentation by a professor in the computer science department on computer vision and how their research could help vehicles to navigate. Senator Kennedy was sitting in the front row and couldn’t manage to keep himself awake. Even from behind it was obvious he was asleep, which was especially bad considering the room was small and he was less than 8 feet from the professor.

Although I didn’t officially meet him, I saw John Kerry once, too. On July 4th weekend in 1999 I was sailing with friends to Nantucket. We stayed the night at the marina on Cape Cod where Kerry had his boat. The next morning I was walking down the dock and walked right past him. A mechanic was working on his engine, and Kerry was not to happy that his boat wasn’t ready. I walked away with the impression that he was unhappy that this poor $20,000-a-year mechanic didn’t have his $300,000+ boat ready for him. I can still remember the whiny expression on his face.

–Dave Patterson

*7*
Here’s a good article topic for Larry Miller: What action has the United Nations taken in the last 10 years that has benefited the world in general?

–Rick Vinas

*8*
Terry Eastland’s Goodbye to All That ties into a much bigger cultural point: Beginning with the secular, self-absorbed Baby-Boomer generation, conservatives have been lectured on how prudish they are, how “afraid” they are of their bodies, sexual expression, etc. Yet these enlightened people are the ones who are really afraid. They are so obsessed with their own pleasure that they are terrified of commitment to a marriage, the duty and joy of raising children, and thus the sustenance of life itself.

–Steve Nikitas

*9*
Europe is depopulating . . . and not a moment too soon. Nothing could be better for the average citizen than a falling population. A worker’s labor has more value. With fewer workers to compete, there is greater chance of earning a living wage. Fewer people also means less competition for housing and more land for everyone.

Here in New York the population has exploded. That’s great for the economy, but real people are devastated. In 1960 my parents had high school diplomas and were in their 20s. They considered moving into an apartment that today only dot.com millionaires could afford. The truth is, I make much more money than my parents ever did, and my standard of living will never be as high as theirs was.

The people of Italy are doing the right thing. Anybody know where I can take Italian lessons?

–Bill Dienstag

*10*
I am a financial adviser and prior to the Patriot Act, all information we received from our clients was for the benefit of the client or the protection of our firm. (Claudia Winkler, Who’s Afraid of the Patriot Act) We are now required to get information about our clients for the government.

As Winkler says, the government may never use the information, but I resent the implication that all my clients are laundering money for al Qaeda. Once again the government uses a sledgehammer when a scalpel is needed.

–Joe Davey