Trump Admin Cancels $26 Million Funding for Baltimore-DC Maglev Train Project

The initiative has ‘nothing to show for it’ despite almost a decade of planning, stated the transportation department.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks to reporters at the White House on April 9, 2025. Travis Gillmore/The Epoch Times

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) will cancel two grants worth more than $26 million for the Baltimore-Washington Superconducting Magnetic Levitation project, citing significant project delays and high costs, the Department of Transportation (DOT) said in an Aug. 1 statement.

The project proposed setting up a high-speed rail system based on superconducting magnetic levitation (Maglev) technology between Baltimore and Washington, at an estimated cost of almost $20 billion.

According to Northeast Maglev, a company involved in the project, the system would have allowed travel at speeds of 311 miles per hour, making the journey between Washington and Baltimore possible in just 15 minutes. It currently takes roughly an hour to travel between the two cities by car, according to data from Google Maps.

The rail system was to eventually be extended to New York, allowing travel from the Big Apple to the nation’s capital in an hour, compared with about four hours and 20 minutes by car at present.

However, “after nearly a decade of poor planning, significant community opposition, tremendous cost overruns, and nothing to show for it,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy decided to end federal involvement in the project and save taxpayer funds, DOT said.

The FRA has been involved since 2016 in the project, which has been delayed numerous times. The grant was authorized in 2016. Since then, the environmental review process for the project has been paused twice. Since August 2021, the review has been on pause.

In addition to the direct cost to the government, indirect effects of the project “would also impair critical infrastructure and ongoing agency missions,” DOT said.

Had the project proceeded, the agencies harmed by it would have included the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service, the National Security Agency, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, DOT added.

“We want big, beautiful projects worthy of taxpayer dollars—including high-speed rail. This project lacked everything needed to be a success, from planning to execution. This project did not have the means to go the distance, and I can’t in good conscience keep taxpayers on the hook for it,” Duffy said.

“We’ll continue to look for exciting opportunities to fund the future of transportation and encourage innovation.”

Earlier, on July 31, the FRA sent a letter to the secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation, providing notice that the agency was pulling out of the project.

FRA said in the letter that the project, as planned, would have resulted in “significant, unresolvable impacts to federal agencies and federal property.”

Given the substantial cost overruns and delays, the agency could not see a “viable path” to continue investing in the project, it said.

As such, the FRA requested that the Maryland DOT submit final reports on the project and close out the agreement funding the initiative.

The funding cancellation comes a few months after Maryland Gov. Wes Moore visited Japan in April as part of a trade and investment mission, test-riding a maglev train with his delegation, according to an April 12 statement from his office.

In an April 16 statement, Northeast Maglev said the proposed rail project, if completed, would be the first magnetic levitation train system in the United States.

The project was expected to create “123,000 construction-related jobs and 38,000 in professional services in Maryland, and another 1,500 permanent jobs once operational,” according to the statement. It would add “$8.8 billion in employee earnings to [Maryland’s] economy, with ongoing operations expected to generate another $268 million annually,” it stated.

In an Aug. 1 X post, Ashanti Martinez, a Democrat member of the Maryland House of Delegates, hailed the FRA’s decision to suspend funding for the maglev project. He posted a joint statement issued by various Maryland officials on July 31.

“This outcome did not happen by accident,“ the statement said. ”It is the result of relentless and unified opposition from our community and elected leaders—a coalition of residents, advocates, faith leaders, council members, and state legislators.”

“We voiced the concerns of thousands who would have been displaced, disconnected, or disregarded in the name of a project that served too few and risked too much,“ it said. ”We made it clear: our communities are not for sale, and infrastructure should uplift communities—not divide them.”