A high-speed magnetic levitation train proposed to link Pittsburgh International Airport, Downtown, Monroeville and Greensburg continues a slow journey through government bureaucracy.

	Learn more at information sessions, public hearings Officials will hold a series of public information sessions this month and formal public hearings in November about a draft environmental impact statement for a proposed 54-mile magnetically levitated high speed train called maglev. The 2-inch-thick document will be made available for review starting Friday through Dec. 7 at 30 locations in Allegheny and Westgmoreland counties. It also will be accessible online starting Friday at the Port Authority's Web site, www.ridegold.com, and the project promoter's Web site, www.maglevpa.com. A series of public information sessions, where people can meet project officials and informally view plans and ask questions, will be held: Oct. 18, at Community College of Allegheny County Boyce campus, Monroeville, 4-7 p.m. Oct. 19, University of Pittsburgh's Greensburg campus, 4-7 p.m. Oct. 25, Regional Enterprise Tower, Downtown, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Oct. 26, The Mall at Robinson, at the Center Court near Starbucks, 4-7 p.m. Public hearings, where people must register in advance (at 412-303-1185) to be assigned times for oral presentations no longer than five minutes, will be held: Nov. 9, Regional Enterprise Tower, Downtown, 11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Nov. 15, Community College of Allegheny County Boyce campus, 4-8:30 p.m. Nov. 16, Four Points Sheraton in Greensburg, 4-8:30 p.m. Nov. 17, Montour High School (tentative), 4-8:30 p.m.

Project sponsors held a preview of a draft environmental impact statement -- four years in the making -- for elected officials last week, getting ready for public release of the document Friday, informational meetings later in the month and formal public hearings in November.

The 90-minute meeting at the Regional Enterprise Tower, Downtown, moves the ambitious project and the region's competition to win federal funding for a demonstration project back into the spotlight for the first time in a year.

A lot has happened in the meantime:

The overall cost of the 54-mile elevated guideway and sleek trains that would exceed 240 mph has jumped from the $2.7 billion figure reported in September 2004 to an estimated $4.6 billion. The first leg alone, 15 miles between the airport and Downtown, would cost an estimated $1.8 billion.

If Pittsburgh wins the race for federal funding, and if all goes as planned, the first leg would not be built and operational before 2014.

The Pennsylvania Project, as it is called, is no longer competing with only Washington, D.C.- Baltimore for federal funding. Atlanta-Chattanooga, Tenn., and Las Vegas-Anaheim, Calif., projects are now part of the mix.

The $950 million earmarked for a national high-speed maglev demonstration project is not included in the new federal transportation spending bill.

Revised ridership figures in the draft environmental statement estimate about 6,000 people a day would ride each way, or a total of 12,000, on the first leg, with stops at the landside building at the airport, a large park-n-ride lot at Enlow Road on Route 60 near the airport, and Downtown next to the Steel Plaza light-rail station.

Maglev Inc., a for-profit business supported by a consortium of private firms, has been advancing the high-speed, high-tech train concept since 1991. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Port Authority have joined to provide the public agency participation needed to qualify for federal funds, with the goal of developing an entire new industry for the region if maglev succeeds.

Frank Clark, senior vice president of Maglev Inc., said high-speed maglev is not an impossible dream.

Besides a test track in Germany, the basis for design and technology of the Pennsylvania Project, high-speed maglev has been built in China.

The draft environmental statement shows numerous alignments for the local Maglev, but the most environmentally sound and least disruptive option takes the line Downtown crossing the Route 60-Business Route 60 interchange, south of McKees Rocks and along Carson Street to the South Side. A bridge would be built to cross the Monongahela River to Downtown.

In the second phase, the line would follow the south bank of the Allegheny River to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and then the turnpike east to Monroeville.

The third phase to Greensburg would follow the turnpike to the Route 136-Toll 66 interchange.

The draft environmental statement will be available at more than 30 sites throughout the region starting Friday, when the clock starts ticking on a 60-day review and public comment period.

The future timetable calls for the final statement to be finished about a year later.