When Maryland Gov. Wes Moore was in Japan expressing amazement at magnetic-levitation train technology, residents in the path of the proposed high-speed train back home were less than impressed.
“I thought it was a slap in the face,” said Susan McCutchen, a resident of Bladensburg in Prince George’s County who has spent the better part of eight years fighting a maglev train proposed to zip between Washington and Baltimore.
The Democratic governor, she said, had seemed to be on the fence about the maglev proposal, not offering a clear position. “We’ve been hearing rumors he supports it, and then he goes to Japan and says it,” she said.
McCutchen, a volunteer with the anti-maglev Maryland Coalition for Responsible Transit, was among about 100 people who packed a stuffy library meeting room in Greenbelt on Saturday morning to express concerns and frustration about the train project.
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They’re worried the Democratic governor’s enthusiasm might reignite the proposal, which has been stalled in an environmental review for the past few years.
Capable of reaching speeds in excess of 300 mph, maglev holds the promise of slashing the trip time between East Coast cities. The idea of sending a maglev train jetting between D.C. and Baltimore dates back to the 1990s.
But the $10 billion-plus proposal has gone in fits and starts, and faced opposition from residents concerned about the cost and disruption from a train line that would more likely cater to out-of-towners than local residents hoping for a better commute to work.
At the Greenbelt meeting, residents got up one after another and ticked off their concerns. Digging underground tunnels might compromise the structural integrity of condo and apartment buildings. The line would gobble up green space needed for wildlife. Construction would cause disruption in areas already struggling with the long-in-the-works Purple Line.
And they asked: Would any local residents even ride the maglev? Any Prince George’s County resident who might want to ride maglev would have to drive or take a Metro train into D.C. to get onboard, it was pointed out.
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They offered ideas for putting the pressure on Moore to change his mind. One person suggested a letter-writing campaign to news organizations. Get residents of other parts of the state onboard, urged another. Stage a demonstration outside the Japanese Embassy, another offered.
Ina Fells, president of the Woodlawn Community Association in Hyattsville, has been fighting maglev for eight years and urged those in the audience to stay committed to the cause.
“We can’t stop fighting because fighting works,” she said.
After the meeting, Fells said she was “not a happy camper” to see Moore’s enthusiasm for the maglev train ride. It reminded her of 10 years ago, when then-Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, took the same ride and also “came back googly-eyed” for the technology.
At one point in the early 2000s, maglev was held up as a tool to land the 2012 Olympics for the region.
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That’s when state Sen. Pamela Beidle first got involved. At the time, she was a member of the Anne Arundel County Council and couldn’t abide the idea that the maglev train would run straight through the Linthicum neighborhoods she represented.
Now among the top Democratic leaders in the state Senate, Beidle said she was surprised when she read Moore’s comments in the news. She immediately texted top aides to the governor in search of answers.
“If you thought the Purple Line had an impact to communities, wait until you see what this would do,” Beidle said in an interview.
Sen. Alonzo T. Washington, a Prince George’s County Democrat, was so concerned about Moore’s interest in maglev that he quickly switched up the format of his planned annual update meeting for constituents Saturday to turn it into part anti-maglev rally.
He asked more than a dozen elected officials from Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties to join him onstage at the library to reiterate their opposition and field questions from anxious residents.
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Washington said in an interview that he was taken aback when he read about Moore’s ride on the maglev train.
“I was surprised and a bit disappointed, I must be honest,” Washington said. “Because we’ve had conversations about it. Our community has been against it for such a long time.”
Community opposition to the maglev line has stretched from Lanham to Linthicum over the years. In Baltimore’s Cherry Hill neighborhood, where a maglev station might be built, community leaders have gone back and forth over whether to support the project. That community also saw a legal fight over whether the maglev developers could use a parcel of land for the project.
State lawmakers have tried to slow or stop the maglev project. They’ve unsuccessfully tried to pass laws banning the state from paying for any maglev construction and also preventing the maglev project from using the railroad industry’s ability to acquire land through eminent domain.
Del. Anne Healey, a Prince George’s Democrat, has sponsored the eminent domain bill for years. She said maglev seems like wonderful technology but it would be not-so-wonderful for the local communities.
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Maybe, she suggested, the governor just got carried away by the impressive train.
“He got overexcited, like a little boy,” the Prince George’s County Democrat said.
In response to a summary of community concerns provided by The Baltimore Banner, Moore spokesperson Brittany Marshall issued a statement: “Innovative transportation infrastructure is one key to connecting Marylanders from where they live to where opportunity lies.”
She added: “The governor recognizes that the proposed Maglev project in the Baltimore-Washington region has a long and complex history in the state that far pre-dates the Moore-Miller Administration. The state looks forward to receiving more guidance from the U.S. Department of Transportation as they contemplate the next steps of the project.”
When the governor took his trip on the demonstration maglev line in Japan, he was accompanied by Wayne Rogers, CEO of Northeast Maglev, the company that wants to build the line. Rogers promoted the project’s potential to open access to jobs and spur development.
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The company has touted a poll it commissioned this year showing 67% support for the Baltimore-Washington maglev proposal among 500 Maryland voters who were questioned.
In Greenbelt on Saturday, representatives of Northeast Maglev planted pro-maglev signs outside the library and handed out flyers before the meeting; by the time it started, they were gone.
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