China has suspended the planned construction of a high-speed magnetic levitation train route linking the eastern cities of Shanghai and Hangzhou amid radiation concerns, officials and experts said on Saturday.

"The project has been suspended in line with the arrangements of the municipal government," said a spokesman with the local government of Minhang District in the city's southern suburbs.

An official with the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress confirmed a major reason for the suspension was the radiation concerns from residents living along the proposed route. "The government is working on the issue," he said on condition of anonymity.

Approved by the central government in March 2006, the 35-billion-yuan (US$4.5 billion) maglev project using German technology is designed to float 175 km and run at a maximum speed of 450 km per hour.

It was generally believed that the line would operating by 2010, when Shanghai plays host to the World Expo.

The Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev line will be the world's second commercial high-speed maglev track. Shanghai operates the world's only commercial maglev system on a 30-km run between Shanghai's financial district and its Pudong airport.

"The petition office told us early this month the maglev construction and all the relocation plans had been suspended," said Wang Xia (pseudonym), a resident in Xinzhuang township in Minhang. "We had been looking forward to this."

Wang, a 28-year-old expectant mother, began to petition in March, shortly after she learned the maglev route was to traverse her community. "I was worried because the radiation could harm my baby."

The planned maglev route was separated from some communities by a green belt only 22.5 meters wide, though a blueprint of the local government indicates a protection belt 150 meters wide will be built on either side. But even that is only half the 300-meter specifications that are applicable in Germany.

Radiation is at least one of the reasons for suspension, sources said.

The local government has been under huge pressure over the past months, with crowds of petitioners knocking at their doors every day and thousands of complaints received online. The Minhang District government alone received more than 5,000 petitioners in a single day in March.

Analysts said the petitioners had apparently succeeded in convincing the government to think twice.

"The project is still under study and its final design is subject to approval," said Wang Qingyun, an official in charge of transportation at National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

"It's still hard to say whether the maglev would be built after all, but even if it would, it's not possible to complete the project before 2010."

Local media reported earlier that all the relocation work was to be done before the end of this year to make way for the maglev route construction. But the recent month has seen most of the relocation work halted and suspended new real estate projects resumed.

"We were told to resume construction because the maglev project had been suspended," said a sales manager of Linshui Meidi Garden, a new development project in Minhang District.

Sources close to the Shanghai municipal government said officials were still weighing the pros and cons whether the project was worthwhile. "The original budget was 35 billion yuan, but experts said the final cost would top 40 billion."

While supporters of the project said the maglev trains would speed up urbanization and economic development in the Yangtze River Delta and help Hangzhou and Jiaxing cities in Zhejiang Province catch up with their rich neighbor Shanghai, those who are against the idea worried the costly project would yield little return.

"The 150 yuan one-way ticket is obviously too high for the ordinary people," said Prof. Li Hong, a researcher with the NDRC's transportation institute.

He said high fares had already left an operational maglev route between Shanghai's Pudong International Airport and Longyang Road in a dilemma. "Its ticket revenue is only 100 million yuan a year and that will take 100 years to break even."

An alternative solution could be a high-speed rail link, which would be almost as fast as the maglev but cost only half as much. A trip from Shanghai to Hangzhou by high-speed train would take 35 minutes, only seven minutes longer than the maglev ride.

Ministry of Railways said the project was under study. "Details would be published at an appropriate time," said Huang Min, a planning official.

(Xinhua News Agency May 26, 2007)