The Maglev Dispute

By LAN XINZHEN

The Maglev Dispute

By LAN XINZHEN

THE COST OF SPEED: A maglev train pulls out of Pudong Airport in Shanghai. Plans for Beijing’s first maglev line have met vehement resistance from residents along the planned rail route

The proposed high-speed maglev train project in Beijing is suspended by residents’ questions and concerns

Plans for Beijing’s frst maglev line, despite providing efficient and record-speed transportation across the Chinese capital, is meeting fierce resistance from residents along the proposed route. Concerns stem from possible exposure to radiation produced by the maglev train.

The project, called the S1 Line, aims to include Beijing’s western suburbs into the city’s urban rail transport network. China’s independently developed technologies will highlight the construction of the low-to-medium-speed magnetic levitation (maglev) train. Expected to run at 150 km per hour, S1 Line trains will have two operating systems—manual and automatic.

The maglev train has several advantages over conventional trains. The cost for the maglev line is around 400 million yuan ($58.6 million) per km, far less than the 600-800 million yuan ($87.8-117 million) price tag that comes with subway rail. The maglev train can easily run through dense residential areas with a minimum turning radius of 75 meters, while subways and urban trains require 300 meters. Additionally, the maglev train suits areas with complex geological surroundings where tunneling can be somewhat challenging.

But residents aren’t buying it, even though these merits make the maglev line Beijing’s top choice in terms of high-speed city transportation.

Objection

Construction of the S1 Line has been assigned to Beijing Infrastructure Investment Co. Ltd., while the Environmental Assessment and Engineering Center (EAEC) of the China Academy of Railway Sciences (CARS) has been entrusted with assessing the project’s impact on the environment.

The academy released an assessment report on its website on May 6, inviting the citizens to provide their opinion and ask questions about the S1 Line’s environmental impact.

Anxieties were high among residents pertaining to the maglev line’s infuence on their health, said Zhao Lei, who lives in an apartment in the China House residential compound. The S1 Line will run through his compound and nearby Bisenli residential compound, with only 30 meters separating the residents from the maglev line.

Residents in the two residential compounds and some other housing projects along the line signed a letter of protest and sent it to the academy, the Beijing Infrastructure Investment Co. Ltd. and relevant departments of the Beijing Municipal Government. They have also taken their opposition online.

From the letter’s first sentence, the residents’ stance is clear: “We the residents along the maglev line—a severe environmental and health menace to us—firmly oppose the decision.”

They outlined four primary reasons for their opposition.

First and foremost was the fear of exposure to unknown amounts of radiation. The safety of maglev technologies has yet to be proved for wide application because of a lack of statistical data to defne radiation pollution and associated harm, said the letter.

The letter also raised questions concerning the government’s ability to assess harm to regular passengers from potential radiation exposure and also provide medical support should the project have a detrimental sideeffect on passengers and residents.

The second point addressed the distance of the S1 Line from residential areas. Houses need to be 300 meters away from the maglev line for safety purposes, according to German rail standards. Research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) already prohibits construction of any building within 100 meters of maglev rails.

Noise from passing maglev trains was also addressed in the letter. Many claim the noise from a passing maglev train is more annoying than that of a wheeled train.

Residents also said they are hesitant to believe that maglev trains will not bother those along train routes with jarring or jolting. The absence of jarring is only theoretical, based on statistics from experiments conducted in an environmentwithout vehicles, residents or factories, they said in the letter.

Instead, the residents proposed paving rails underground for wheeled trains as an alternative to the S1 Line.

Safe design

Beijing Enterprises Holdings Maglev Technology Development Co. Ltd. will provide the technology for the Chinese capital’s fist maglev line. The company completed research and development work with nearly 40 million yuan ($5.86 million) in funds from the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission.

In 2008, the company built a 1.547-km low-speed maglev test line in Tangshan, Hebei Province, and tested it with an economical maglev train.

The train was approved by a team of experts and passed four tests from the CAS Institute of Electrical Engineering (IEE) and Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center on March 5, 2010.

Magnetic radiation intensity from a lowto-medium-speed maglev train is lower than the safety standard set by the International Commission on Non-Lonizing Radiation Protection and is about the same as that from wheeled trains running on rails, a report issued by the team of experts said.

“The radiation from a low-to-mediumspeed maglev train is safe enough for people to use, because, broadly speaking, we are already living in an electromagnetic environment,” said Sun Guangsheng, a researcher with the Bioelectromagnetics Lab under the IEE of the CAS and one of the experts involved in analyzing the Tangshan test line.

While household lights generally operate on at least 50 hz, the maglev train has a frequency high of 90 hz. The electromagnetic radiation is also “sealed,” Sun said.

Passengers don’t have to worry about the radiation because the radiation within the maglev train is about the same as that from a hair dryer or an electric razor, said Cong Chunshui, a senior engineer with Beijing Enterprises Holdings, to Beijing Review.

In terms of the noise, Liu Zhiming, Chairman of Beijing Enterprises Holdings, said it is about 64 db 10 meters from the rail, which is lower than the 92 db from a light rail train.

The test states that the S1 Line maglev train meets national standards for magnetic radiation and noise, according to the Beijing Infrastructure Investment Co. Ltd.

Concessions

The wide dispute over the maglev’s safety has postponed the public hearing slated to conclude later this month.

A CARS researcher said the expert team is investigating the issues brought up by residents and will publish their fndings in a second report. No timetable has been set for the follow-up report.

But residents have won a small victory in their fght against the fast train: on May 12, the EAEC of the CARS issued a notice on its website, saying the length of the project’s underground section would be extended from 455 meters to 2,969 meters.

The underground extension will cause a smaller population to be affected, but will still leave the two compounds of Bisenli and China House on the maglev’s proposed path.

Zhao and his neighbors are decided in their resistance and will continue to send letters to relevant administrations.

“Maglev trains haven’t been put into wide application overseas despite numerous demonstrations. So why should China promote it so hastily?” Zhao said.

MAGLEV MANIA: Visitors watch a high-speed maglev train model of the Beijing Enterprises Holdings Maglev Technology Development Co. Ltd. at the China (Beijing) International Transport and Municipal Facilities Exhibition in August 2009