|
Tuesday, 03 October 2006 17:57 |
 | | Mark West |
The recent and tragic wreck of the maglev train in Germany wonët stop research and it wonët stop the eventual deployment of the technology that will someday replace both environmentally ruinous commercial aviation and the laughably inefficient use of the personal automobile for long-haul transportation.
The technology itself is exciting. Maglev is short for "magnetic levitation," and the trains indeed float above the tracks, relying on a cushion of air created by the forward motion of the train. Magnetic fields in the "rails" elevate the passenger cars and pull them forward, while magnets in a vertical guard keep the train properly positioned over the "rails."
The
technology works well. Shanghai constructed a maglev train between
Pudong Airport and downtown Shanghai, which had been a notorious
hour-long struggle by cab. The maglev train reaches speeds of up to
270 miles an hour, and completes the trip in seven minutes. The wreck
in Germany was unfortunate, but wasnët the fault of the new technology;
a maintenance vehicle ended up on the track at the wrong time, and the
maglev train collided with it, killing 23 passengers.
This is tragic,
to be sure. But it is the same sort of accident that happened with
trains during the steam era. And there is a second tragedy that the
recent developments in maglev technology highlight ¨?ÇƒÓ that none of the
advances in this epochal technology are happening in the United
States.
We hear continually that the U.S. is "different," that rail transport of any sort canët work here.
The reality is
that we have a government devoted to benefitting the rich ÇƒÓ and
indifferent at best and openly hostile at worst ÇƒÓ to infrastructure
development.
Thereës plenty
of money out there that might go to infrastructure development, but it
goes into the coffers of the richest of the rich. Corporate profits
leapt from 8.5 percent of national income to 12.3 percent between 2001
and 2005, while total pay and benefits to American citizens fell a
percent during the comparable time. This is a shift of wealth on a
dramatic and unprecedented scale.
Even with the
Bush administrationës reverse Robin Hood policies, there still might be
money for serious, far-sighted infrastructure development ¨?ÇƒÓ but it is
being wasted on a war in Iraq that isnët working. According to the
Institute for Policy Studies, the war in Iraq may well ending up
costing $700 billion dollars.
That could have
paid for a national maglev train network. And national health
care and the rebuilding of New Orleans and a host of other things we
could surely use better than Vietnam Revisited.
So who is
thinking about national infrastructure development? Hardly anyone.
The Larouche organization, always caricatured in the national press,
has advanced a number of entirely sensible proposals.
The Democrats,
who have been alternately aping and castigating the Republicans, should
take a look at what a positive party platform looks like.
And they should learn from it.
The Democrats,
if they are to win, must offer something positive, something more like
a vision of a future than a reaction to the baitings of the
Republicans. And a significant infrastructure policy would be a great
place to start.
ï
Mark West is a professor of mass communications at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
|
