Wired magazine reported last week that Michigan may get the nation’s first “hydrogen superhighway,” a high-speed magnetic levitation train system connecting Detroit and Lansing along the I-96 corridor. There is currently a state task force studying the proposal, which would be paid for with private money but would require state approval.
 

Lawmakers in Michigan are considering plans to build a high-speed, hydrogen-powered maglev rail line that would carry people between Detroit and Lansing using specially built cars, buses, and trucks. The project would be funded entirely by the private sector, and according to the company that designed it, provide a variety of economic and environmental benefits to the state. Supports of the program say it’s a chance for Michigan to take a leadership role in an emerging industry, while critics argue it is an expensive distraction.

Known as the Interstate Traveler Hydrogen Super Highway, the program is nothing if not ambitious. Stainless steel tracks would run alongside and above the stretch of Interstate 96 that connects Detroit and Lansing, accommodating a wide range of vehicles built by the Big Three and capable of traveling up to 200 mph. Passengers would board and alight from traveler stations built at each freeway interchange, and rail-mounted solar cells would fuel hydrogen batteries that power the system’s magnetic field.

Interstate Traveler Company LLC, the company that designed the system, says the Superhighway will not only move people across the state fast, but will spin off enough surplus energy to power municipal sewer and water, communication, and security systems, and its tracks can be used to house conduit clusters of utility lines and fiber optic cables.

Private investors are ready to put up the $2 billion required to build the line from Lansing to Detroit as a model project for the rest of the nation. The company’s plans are extraordinarily ambitious and they say that the benefits for the country are enormous:

But Interstate Traveler says that its superhighway, once deployed alongside all 54,000 miles of the Eisenhower Interstate System, will do much more than solve America’s transportation problems. Building a national network, the company says, will require something in the neighborhood of 750 million tons of American made steel, singlehandedly saving that industry. Staffing the network’s traveler stations and associated businesses would create 2.1 million “livable wage” jobs, and the whole enterprise would generate a carbon offset value that exceeds $650 million.

Sounds like something that should get serious consideration and a lot of study before being undertaken.