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The Chinese maglev is just impractical: it doesn’t go into the city and it’s quicker and about as cheap to just take a cab to the airport.

The Japanese maglev is going to be a full blown commuter alternative to the massively successful tokaido Shinkansen.

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China is also build new low-speed maglevs:

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/china-driverless-maglev-t...

There are many places where 100 mph is sufficiently fast.

The Changsha HSR-airport maglev is actually useful, but is very much a local transit option. It still doesn’t go into the city, but I’ve had to make that connection before. The Shanghai maglev doesn’t connect to anything more than a subway station.

This. They originally wanted to make the maglev line all the way to the other airport (Hongqiao) with a stop in downtown (People's Square). If they just went to People's Square, the amount of people using it would be MUCH greater.

There were actually complaints about the the dangers have maglev magnetic radiation or something like that. I don’t think they were valid, but even China has to cave into public pressure sometimes. Also, it was just too expensive to build more, so I think they decided to make it a dead end.

I took it once (back in 2006) just to experience it. It is fast, just not when compared to the whole trip being made by a taxi.

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