Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga

ATLANTA — Supporters of a high-speed train linking the Chattanooga and Atlanta airports said Thursday the border skirmishes and water wars between Georgia and Tennessee would not derail the years-long project just as it is gaining steam.

Georgia state Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, introduced a resolution urging the Georgia Department of Transportation to construct a magnetically levitating, or maglev, railway connecting the two airports.

“This (legislation) continues a show of support from the Senate Transportation Committee and our solidarity with our brethren in Tennessee,” Sen. Mullis said Thursday.

On Wednesday he was accepting 2,000 bottles of Tennessee water sent to the Capitol by Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield to make light of Georgia resolutions seeking border commissions to re-examine the state’s boundary with Tennessee.

This latest pass at the border dispute is a drought-inspired effort by Georgia lawmakers to stake a claim on a piece of the Tennessee River by arguing the state line is 1.1 miles too far south.

Mr. Littlefield said Thursday the “absurd” border antics would not affect a Tennessee-Georgia transportation partnership that has been ongoing for nearly a decade and has nothing to do with water exchange.

“There are practical solutions (to the drought) that have nothing to do with extending a pipe off the Tennessee River,” the mayor said, adding later, “The transportation issue is very feasible.”

Mr. Littlefield said he and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin are “united” on transportation and that high-speed rail is “the way” to transport people between Chattanooga and Atlanta.

GDOT is in the middle of an $8 million federal study of the proposed Chattanooga-to-Atlanta rail line, including options of traditional high-speed trains and the state-of-the-art maglev rail, which uses magnetic forces to propel the train to speeds of more than 300 mph.

The estimated travel time between the airports on the maglev is 47 minutes, Chris Brady of Transrapid International said in a presentation Thursday to Georgia Senate and House Transportation Committee members. The company researches the rail technology.

The same study also estimated the Chattanooga-Atlanta maglev line cost at $4.8 billion, which he said could be offset with freight fees and a high number of riders. The line possibly could pull in a profit, especially with its low maintenance costs, Mr. Brady said.

The priciest part would be constructing the elevated railway through downtown Atlanta, while the cost through North Georgia would be about $25 million a mile, he said.

“Tennessee may want to move the border once they see how much this costs,” said a laughing Sen. John Douglas, R-Social Circle.

Although GDOT is heading up the most current study, Mr. Brady reminded Georgia legislators that Tennessee has been invested in the effort and has done “a lot of the heavy lifting in D.C.”

Chattanooga put up $300,000 in matching funds to get the study off the ground. A metro Atlanta community improvement district supplied about $875,000.

Also, Tennessee worked to route $2 million through Tennessee DOT to fully fund the Georgia DOT study begun last year, said Joe Ferguson, director of special projects for The Enterprise Center, a nonprofit group that works for the economic development of Chattanooga.

Chattanooga’s rail aspirations are not limited to Atlanta, Mr. Ferguson said. There is also a more preliminary study on extending the line from Chattanooga to Nashville.

Mr. Ferguson estimated any high-speed rail line would take 10 years to build even if the money was available now, but he said excitement has grown continually since he has been involved in the project.

“Over the last several years, the interest level has never waned,” he said.