Las Vegas’ Regional Transportation Commission is considering the idea of building a light-rail subway under the Las Vegas strip. Unlike most roads, congestion on the strip does not happen during morning and afternoon rush hours but on weekends and evenings when tourists tire of gambling in their own hotels and decide to explore some of the other hotels on the strip.
The strip is already served by an expensive monorail that was privately funded by a firm that has since gone bankrupt. Plus there are numerous private and public buses that run up and down the strip.
Comments to this and other articles claim that the monorail failed because it didn’t go to the airport and because its route behind the hotels offers such pleasant scenery as blank walls and dumpsters. But the fact that hotels didn’t want to mar their public facades with an elevated train–and some hotels didn’t want the monorail at all because they didn’t want to encourage their guests to escape–explains some of the problems facing any potential rail line. Las Vegas has a thriving, for-profit airport shuttle system that avoids congestion by using back streets, so replacing that with a subsidized rail line is totally unnecessary.
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The monorail failed because it was an expensive, low-capacity system, but its non-scenic route may have contributed to that failure. So just how is an underground rail line going to help? Tourists want to see the lights and architecture of nearby hotels, not underground tunnels.
City planners need to realize that there is a limit to the density that can be supported by transportation services. Hotels may want to get bigger, but as they do, more of their guests spill over on the street. It may be that part of the attraction of wandering the strip when it is cool enough to do so is to see all the other people who are doing the same. But it can also become uncomfortably crowded, which may actually benefit the hotels as it will encourage some people to stay inside and enjoy the shows or gambling. Adding a high-cost, low-capacity transit system is not going to significantly increase the capacity of the strip to support tourism and traffic.
If they really want to improve the flow of traffic on the strip, perhaps something as unusual as glassed-in, air-conditioned pedestrian paths would make more sense. These would be expensive but a lot less costly than spending $750 million a mile on a light-rail line that doesn’t serve tourist needs because it doesn’t offer views of the strip. This idea sounds crazy, but plenty of crazy ideas have succeeded in Las Vegas. The air conditioning would allow tourists to use the pedestrian paths all day long, thus distributing the traffic on the strip. The only problem is finding enough hotels willing to risk losing their guests in order to attract other hotels’ guests into their doors to help finance the pedestrian paths.
I’ve been in Vegas in the summer. One night we were walking in 102 degrees after midnight.
The air-conditioned walkways would be a big hit. Charge a fee to get in (maybe $5.00 a day per person). Put kiosks in all the hotels for people to buy passes to keep it moving quickly. After walking a few minutes in the desert heat, even the cheapskates like me will buy a pass.
And we’ll be way ahead of the cost of the train.
Yes, Las Vegas’s thriving for-profit airport system that consists of taxis increasing their profit by taking unsuspecting tourists to their hotels via the freeway instead of directly via Paradise/Tropicana. The incredibly expensive taxis have also demonstrated their clout by so far waging a successful war against lower cost ride sharing services like Uber. If an easy to use public transit option enabled tourists to save $20 or more on a round trip between their hotel and the airport, then that is an extra $20 they could spend in the hotel.
Anyone familiar with the Deuce public bus along the strip knows two things: 1) it is almost always very crowded and 2) it moves so slowly that it is usually faster to walk than to take it. There certainly seems to be a lot of untapped demand for better public transit along Las Vegas Blvd. While a segregated (and enforced) bus lane would alleviate many problems, it is unlikely to be acceptable politically.
In addition to having a poor route, I believe the monorail has failed due to its high ticket cost resulting from the fact that it is a privately owned company. This high ticket cost means that it cannot reasonably be used by the many low paid service employees who work at the casinos. Which brings me to its next point –
A light rail system along the Strip is likely to be used at least as much, if not more, by employees than it will be by tourists. Having a rapid train that can connect the airport with downtown Las Vegas in fifteen minutes and that will connect with the vast majority of existing RTC local bus routes will place the largest employers in Las Vegas within easy transit reach of most of the city. As a plus for the casinos, any employee who takes transit to work instead of driving means one fewer parking space that has to be provided for them. Eventually, such a change in the mode share could allow casinos to replace employee parking lots with more profitable casino expansions.
One final point. I agree that a surface route would be more fun because you could see the sights of the casinos. However, it being Vegas I envision a subway that would be anything but typical. Subways in London, Toronto, and other places have experimented with putting light displays in the tunnels that show a message to passing riders. Done correctly, I can imagine a Strip subway that becomes a Vegas attraction in its own right.
I forgot to mention that I believe air-conditioned walkways would also be beneficial. However, infrequent visitors to the city always forget how long the Strip stretches for. A two-mile walk (like between Tropicana and Sands) would be too far for many Vegas visitors.
Here’s a game changer for Las Vegas: http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada-legislature/legislature-approves-bill-authorizing-uber-lyft-nevada. Uber halted operations in LV late last year after their drivers were hounded by union/taxi thugs in ski masks (Google it). If this legislation clears the way for Uber/Lyft in LV, the cabs are cooked.
I also wonder if this new plan took ridesharing companies and robocars into account. Uber’s CEO says they’ll be driverless in five years.
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This high ticket cost means that it cannot reasonably be used by the many low paid service employees who work at the casinos. Which brings me to its next point –
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~transitboy
I’m not sure why any of them would’ve used it even is it was free. They don’t live nearby. Once you’re driving in from North Las Vegas why park a mile down the street and take a monorail when your employer provides you parking?
Employees on the strip weren’t part of the monorail’s bankruptcy. They weren’t potential customers.
With the heat, the walkways wouldn’t have to be air conditioned nor enclosed. You could set up those misters that restaurants – at least ones out West were it’s dry – use to help cool off customers. Throw those in with a nice canopy for shade and you probably have 80% of the benefit for 20% of the cost.
Maybe Las Vegas could consider something similar to the skyway systems in the Twin Cities and some other colder urban areas. It would no doubt be much cheaper to build, probably with no public money. The “Skyway Level” in the Minneapolis and St. Paul skyway systems are their own vibrant worlds. Shops, restaurants. Access to department stores, banks, even to your apartment. You could live without ever having to go outside. The system connects 69 blocks in downtown Minneapolis. Install moving sidewalks and there may be a plan.
Here’s the Wikipedia article about the Minneapolis skyway system.
Here is a map of the system.