Until recently, “Maglev” trains were being considered for passenger service between Washington D.C. and Baltimore and eventually between Washington D.C. and New York City.
Unlike traditional passenger trains with locomotives pulling steel-wheeled cars on steel tracks, Maglev trains use a powerful combination of electromagnets and levitation.
As a result, Maglev trains can run at top speeds between 250 and 300 miles per hour. That is significantly faster than Amtrak’s soon to be launched NextGen Acela, a high-speed passenger train between Washington, D.C. and Boston with top speeds of up 160 miles per hour.
After seeing and riding Maglev trains on a trade trip to Japan, Governor Moore expressed great enthusiasm and strong support for Maglev passenger trains in Maryland.
Despite Moore’s enthusiasm and support, Maglev trains are not in Maryland’s immediate future, and most likely never will be.
Recently, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is canceling more than $26 million in federal grants to study a Maryland Maglev project.
Duffy noted this project has seen nearly a decade of poor planning, significant public opposition, tremendous costs overruns, and nothing to show for it. He also noted the project would result in significant unresolvable impacts to federal agencies and federal property, including national security agencies and Fort Meade.
Some will say this decision is comparable to previous Trump administration decisions that negatively impact Maryland, such as keeping the FBI headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C. instead of moving it to Maryland, and recent news reports about relocating a U. S. Department of Agriculture research center from Maryland.
That is simply not the case with the Maglev decision.
The Maryland Coalition for Responsible Transit (MCRT) has long opposed the construction of Maglev trains in Maryland.
The all-volunteer MCRT was formed in January of 2020 by a group of citizens from Prince George’s County and Anne Arundel County to evaluate transportation proposals from a broad array of perspectives, then communicate their findings and recommendations to government decision makers and also educate the public.
MCRT launched a grassroots lobbying effort with a concise message: stop the proposed Maglev service from being built and operating in Maryland.
Ultimately, their message was heard by and resonated with a wide range of current and previous Maryland Republican and Democratic local, state, and national elected officials.
Governor Hogan, a former and current resident of Anne Arundel County, initially supported the concept. After it generated widespread public opposition, he changed his stance to oppose it.
Members of the Prince George’s County Council sent a letter to FRA urging rejection of the Maglev proposal.
Angela Alsobrooks, now one of Maryland’s U.S. Senators, signed that letter when she was a member of that council.
U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen has said. “Concerns about the project and its impact on Maryland communities were long running. While its potential was promising, the devil lay in the details, and those details were never fully fleshed out — including how the project would affect residents, our environment, and nearby federal agencies.”
Despite his enthusiasm for the Maglev project, even Governor Moore has accepted the FRA decision. His spokesperson recently said in part, “… this project had challenges that were insurmountable.”
Following the FRA decision, Susan McCutchen, a board member at MCRT, said the decision brought her a mixture of excitement and surprise.
Her surprise was based in part on the MCRT prevailing despite an enormous amount of lobbying done on behalf of the company that planned to bring a Maglev project to Maryland.
According to media reviews of the company’s disclosure reports filed with the Maryland State Ethics Commission, they spent $575,000 on lobbying in 2023 and $603,000 in 2024.
McCutchen has said humbly, “We worked very, very hard — and all volunteer — but it’s for our communities, that’s the bottom line.”
Affirming that the MCRT effort was the result of “very, very, hard work, Maryland State Senator Alonzo Washington and Maryland State Delegates Anne Healey, Ashanti Martinez, and Nicole Williams issued a joint letter saying, “The outcome did not happen by accident. It is the result of relentless and unified opposition from our community and elected leaders — a coalition of residents, advocates, faith leaders, council members, and state legislators who stood together to protect our neighborhoods, homes, and environmental legacy. We made it clear: our communities are not for sale, and infrastructure should uplift communities, not divide them.”
MCRT’s successful efforts are a case study of the awesome power and effectiveness of grassroots citizen lobbying.
Those efforts confirm that in the legislative arena a group of committed, energized, and mobilized citizens can prevail even when they are engaged in a dealing with an opponent who spends in excess of a million dollars to secure a win for their cause.
David Reel is a public affairs and public relations consultant who lives in Easton.
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