Maglev is expensive, but not as much as you're claiming. I am a little curious where you found the $110 million per mile number.

Shanghai's Maglev cost $1.3 billion for 19 miles of track. By my math that works out to about $68 million per mile. You're off by about $40 million per mile with that figure.

Driving up I75 from Atlanta to Chattanooga, which is a pretty straight shot, is about 118 miles. Multiply that times $68 million per mile and it works out to about $8 billion.

China estimates it can lower the cost of building Maglev in the coming years down to about $25 million per kilometer, which works out to about $40 million per mile.

I think the safe estimate for a proposal in Georgia is somewhere between those two numbers, around $50 million per mile. That works out to a $5.9 billion price tag, or about double what they're claiming it will cost, but also a solid $6 billion less than what you're claiming here.

Now, I acknowledge that a pretty damn compelling case would still have to be made for a $6 billion rail line. But that's what is: a $6 billion line, not a $12 billion line.

"A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."

So true, even if it isn't really a quote.

When is there an actual return on the investment if it costs $3-6-12B ?

If maglev is really going to happen some day, it would make a lot more strategic sense for it to go to Charlotte, the banking capital of the country. Metro ATL has the No. 1 airport (stay Delta stay!), which is the huge draw for big business, and being able to hop on a quick train to hit the big banks in Charlotte makes Georgia even more attractive for corporate HQ's. Makes a lot more sense for Georgia big businesses than a train to Chattanooga. Even a train to Savannah, for tourism and the huge growing population along the coastline, makes more sense than Chattanooga. Not sure if any of y'all have driven up and down the coastline recently, but I can't believe how much housing stock is expolding everywhere there. 10 years from now, the coastline population will be bigger than any metro area of the state except metro ATL.

Chattanooga is nice for a weekend getaway trip, but that's the big draw for a train there? Is that where the next big airport is going to be? That would explain it. Talk about billions and billions.

The benefits people see in Chattanooga:

1) Basically unlimited water supply.

2) They all ready have an airport, and plenty of land surrounding it to make it bigger.

3) Sorry guys, but North Metro is more developed and stretches further than South Metro.

4) The Chattanooga City and Hamilton County governments have some nice sized land for sale for development by major industries that simply can't be found in Atlanta anymore.

Trev, I see your point. But why would Georgia taxpayers want to invest in Hamilton County, Tennessee's available land for major industries? We are talking a statewide tax hit, so how do we sell that economic development to folks in Valdosta or Fitzgerald? Is the KIA tax incentive plan (now hiring S. Korean construction workers for the West Point plant) beneficial & attractive for Dalton or Calhoun or Ellijay taxpayers?? Neither can guarantee jobs for Georgians.

I notice Rusty picked the cheapest of the trains!!!! The Japenese Linimo HSST maglev cost $100 million per km as recently as 2005!

There is a company in Powder Springs saying they could build it for less ($50 million/mile) but this is the same company that got millions in grants and then failed. http://american-maglev.com/index.php

The company is going around telling all of these officials they can do something that they have been able to even get to work at all.

Some more about the ones that do work:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7171221.stm

http://www.slate.com/id/2115114/

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQQ/is_5_43/ai_102286909

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14956875/

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:Ftoq_HG8ZhoJ:republicans.transportation.house.gov/Media/File/110th/Rail/3-20-07--roundtable-Brady-questions.pdf+maglev+costs&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=15&gl=us

You know it's not maglev but they say that Japan has found a way to very efficiently run and fund their train system.

I think Trev is right. Going to Chatta is about a second airport.

What an incredible proposed waste of money. If a business case for a profitable high speed rail line from ATL to CHA could be made some private business would already have it on the drawing board. Amtrack has been in operation for decades and still operates at a loss and would go out of business without government support. Can anyone point to a profitable government-owned or subsidized passenger rail line in the US? How about private ones? I can't find any.

Regarding water, all it will take to get water from the Tn river is to have a politician with courage to go to federal court and argue for Georgia's legal right to the water that would be in Georgia if not for a surveying mistake.

As a person who lived in Chattanooga and North Georgia (Atlanta is not North Georgia folks, you got at least another 60 miles before you're truly in North Georgia) for 20 years... I can tell you this, the airport in Chattanooga (Lovell Field) is in prime shape to become a major airport... at least on a domestic level.

When I lived in Chattanooga I often drove to Atlanta to fly... it made no sense, but it's because Chattanooga's airport is small and doesn't have great rates.

Now the problem is becoming that Atlanta needs a second airport.

So instead of building a new airport, why not just adapt Chattanooga's? Turn Lovell Field into a large domestic airport, with Hartsfield-Jackson having heavy international, with still some, just not as much, domestic.

North Metro is huge, and the I-75 corridor up to Chattanooga has grown so much in the past 10 year it isn't even funny.

As for the land issue in Hamilton County... there's also a lot of open land in the North Georgia area for manufacturing, with a lot of poor North Georgians who need solid jobs... something like a train (of whatever kind) connecting Atlanta and Chattanooga would encourage major businesses to build in the North Georgia area.

The price of building a maglev or whatever is costly, but if it does bring much needed jobs to poor North Georgians, and since Atlanta is going to eventually need a second major airport... in the end, the money is going to be spent somewhere, the question is what's the best solution.

Maglev's cost benefit analysis is even worse then commuter rail. This is insane.

I agree with Larry, why are we even discussing anything about Chattanooga? Maybe we can annex it into Georgia! Then we get the airport and the water, what a joke.

As Larry stated Macon has an under-utilized airport as well as Columbus and Augusta. Furthermore, with some of the base closings we could utilize those locations for a second airport. Both Ft McPherson(already connected by MARTA) and Ft Gillem are within close proximity to Hartsfield and could be used for additional runways to service commuter airplanes. Of course Ft McPherson is closer to downtown and has more population density around it than Ft Gillem but both bases are set to be closed and both are within 4 miles of Hartsfield. Think about it.

There's all ready one airport on the south side of Atlanta... the second one will be on the north side... so why are we even mentioning Macon and further down?

Both Ft McPherson(already connected by MARTA) and Ft Gillem are within close proximity to Hartsfield and could be used for additional runways to service commuter airplanes.

Probably the best idea I have heard so far on this issue.

Larry,
I haven't made any decision to whether I'd support this proposal, but currently I lean against it mainly for reasons that Trackboy cited. A train to Chattanooga makes less sense to me than trains to other places without a Hartsfield-sized airport being built in Chattanooga, and some sort of additional incentive from Tennessee (*cough* water deal).

You didn't cite any sources for your estimate in the original blog post, so that's the sourced, real-world example I came up with.

And Rep. Davis,
I'd love for you to show me a state-run transportation department whose cost-benefit analysis does add up. What's GDOT in the hole for this year? About $7.5 billion? What a black hole of waste and cronyism.

Touche' Rusty. However, we can't just continue to feed the beast with new tax increases. We also can not continue to study, plan and consult our ways into projects that never have any congestion relief or any cost benefit. We have a new Commissioner and she is making some much needed changes but it won't be fixed overnight.

The black hole is only $7.5 billion if you include the list of transit and bike projects! And actually if you include the new maglev proposed project were now at $10.5 billion!

Rusty have you read the TTI Urban Mobility report for 2007?

Rep. Davis, easy with the bike projects crack; that's incredibly weak. You know GDOT spends almost nothing on bike projects. It's probably one tenth of a percent of the overall budget. Chill with the red herrings.

Hey, Trackboy, no intention to start a fight. But how many folks are riding bikes to work in Atlanta from the suburbs?

Almost none, that's why GDOT doesn't spend any money on it.