UPDATE: Thanks to commenter Mark Johnson. Here are two studies on Maglev trains:
DesertXPress Press Releases and Studies
Southern California Logistics Rail Authority (PDF)

In an Op-Ed in Sunday’s Sun, former Nevada governors, Kenny Guinn and Bob Miller, make arguments to build a Maglev between SoNev and SoCal.

The govnas make lofty comparisons to Europe and China while praising innovative German technology.

But the article does little to explain why specifically Nevada and California needs to connected. How many people travel between Vegas and LA a year? How bad has the traffic gotten? How bad are the roads?

Two years ago, Guinn told SoCal to Vegas commuters in 2006 in a Bloomberg article that

“they should leave maybe on a Thursday instead of Friday. On Sunday, some people leave hours earlier than they normally would.”

That’s a far cry away from

“if the administration wants to make a lasting contribution to our transportation system, it needs to invest in next-generation technologies such as the magnetic levitation (maglev) system built in Shanghai and operating with a 99.98 percent on-time performance, having traveled 3.5 million miles and carried 18 million passengers.”

Schwarzenegger had some conniptions about improving travel between the two southwestern cities, probably after learning that in 2006, SoCal tourists spent $9.5 billion in Las Vegas. I’d like to hear what the Governator has to say about Miller’s and Guinn’s proposal for Maglev.

This is a long-time dream for rail enthusiasts – in 1999 Amtrak proposed a high-speed train called the Talgo between Vegas and LA. Nothing has come of that since, especially with Bush cutting chunks out of Amtrak’s budget (in 2008, their budget was $800 million.)

Richard Silver, executive director of the Rail Passenger Association of California says the corridor between the two cities is much too short a distance for it to even gain enough momentum and speed that Maglevs require.

Maybe the problem with high-speed rail isn’t funding, but framing. If the train side could make a solid economic argument for high-speed rail between Cali and Nevada, with the costs and benefits placed upfront, voters wouldn’t be so shocked when they get in the booths and read the price tag of the whole shebang.

There has to be study somewhere, right?