FRA published the Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for the Magnetic Levitation Transportation Technology Deployment Program in 2001. Copies of the PEIS were distributed to federal, state and local agencies, interested individuals, and to libraries in the vicinity of the seven Maglev projects.

Magnetic levitation (Maglev) is an advanced transportation technology in which magnetic forces lift, propel, and guide a vehicle over a specially designed guideway. The Maglev Deployment Program was established in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21 ^st Century (TEA-21) with the purpose of demonstrating the feasibility of maglev technology. Through a nation-wide competition, FRA selected seven states or state designated authorities, from a pool of eleven, to receive grants for pre-construction planning. The projects proposed by those seven participants listed below were considered the action alternative in the PEIS. The Maryland and Pennsylvania projects were selected for continued evaluation and initial project development, including engineering design and analysis.

Volume I of the PEIS presents the summary, purpose and need for the action, description of alternatives, a description of the affected natural and human environments, and an assessment of the consequences with potential mitigation for the action alternative as well as the no-action alternative. Volume II presents comments made on the Draft PEIS and responses to those comments.

Download the PEIS

• Volume I
• Volume II

Download the Maglev Record of Decision