Let the record show that the American Gaming Association‘s daily SmartBrief is an invaluable one-stop shop for casino-related news stories, especially now that several of the leading Las Vegas-centric blogs have taken a dirt nap. However, if you can’t find one good laugh per SmartBrief, you’re just not trying. Monday offered this chuckle, courtesy of those inveterate cutups, Caesars Entertainment: “Project Linq will become a destination, exec says.” Hilarious! Tell me another one, Uncle Gary!
Today, we got: “Officials unveil plans to improve Las Vegas Monorail.” If that doesn’t make you collapse in hysterics right there, let me add that the “improvement” involves neither dynamite nor affordable fares. It’s — get this — more Monorail. The line’s braintrust (now there’s an oxymoron!) is dusting off pre-Recession plans that would have extended the Monorail north past Signature, then east to the UNLV campus, ending with a southward thrust into McCarran International Airport. I believe I wrote the first news coverage of this, on a long-vanished Las Vegas Business Press blog. (Hell, just about everything at the Bidness Press is long-vanished, especially credibility, thanks to the spineless and subsequently dethroned Sherman Frederick.)
As I was saying … At that time, the proposal ominously called for a “transfer station” at MGM Grand, as three different types of tram were under consideration. The specter of taking the Monorail to the Green Monster, then schlepping your luggage off one train and onto another, ought to have given Monorail execs pause. And, unlike most existing stretches of the line, the airport route would run almost entirely past the front doors of sundry restaurants, condos and casinos. Just the thing to enhance your property value!
While this plan was in mothballs, I moved to a house directly east of the Tropicana Las Vegas. The proposed Monorail extension would pretty much ruin the view from my front porch. So there’s that. But there’s so much more to dislike about the idea, not least that the inconvenience factor will still be much higher than taking a cab. If you don’t believe me, try hauling several pieces of luggage — or even one — from the Monorail stop at Bally’s Las Vegas to the Paris-Las Vegas check-in desk, then tell me how much fun it was.
The Monorail’s board is still dominated by the clowns how were responsible for this fiscally ruinous “juice job.” Somehow, they got through bankruptcy court with their positions of (ir)responsibility intact, 98% of their debt extinguished and their nonprofit status preserved. (Apt, perhaps, as the LVM is unlikely to ever record a profit.) “From every other point of view, this system has been a success,” said board member Bruce Woodbury, in what would be the funniest line of the year were not so many people out of pocket. If the LVM is a success, I’d shudder to see what failure looks like.
One thing the LVM has going for it this time is that Monorail-hating Las Vegas Sands has experienced a change of heart and is in discussions about having a stop of its own. However, because no sane person would underwrite Monorail bonds nowadays, the LVM is looking to the last high roller at the table: Uncle Sam. It’s unclear whether Monorail bosses having gone cap in hand to the Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial board will put the R-J in the tank for this government bailout. However, as a frequent user and vocal advocate of mass transit, it’s long past time that the misshapen beast known as the Las Vegas Monorail was put out of its misery. Bring on the dynamite!
An Arizona reader points out that the Disney empire has decided against expanding its Disneyland and Disney World monorails. And when someplace as ruthlessly efficient as the Mouse House is bearish on monorails …
It is tough to determine if expanding the Monorail would be throwing good money after bad. I certainly wouldn’t throw my IRA into it (for something like a centimeter of new monorail). Something, however, needs to be done about congestion on and near the Strip. The last time I was in Vegas the traffic on Tropicana Ave. near McCarran was worse than anything I’ve ever seen in New York and on par with Washington, D.C., after a snow flurry. If it was expanded to the airport I think an awful lot of tourists would give the Monorail a second look. It sure would beat a long haul in a taxi.
A monorail that runs to Fremont Street would be a great idea. In lieu of that, make it $2 per trip, one-way, no-reboarding. Wasn’t that what the original fare was supposed to be?
Agree with Mike S. that running the monorail to Fremont Street would be a great idea. It would help to reduce the sense of “distance” from the strip, and might even encourage revitalization on the rest of Fremont Street heading east from the covered portion. There should also be a flat $2 per trip fare. And, a prominent and consistent publicity campaign, to bring the monorail to folks attention, would be essential. But, most importantly, priority must be given to keeping the rail away from homes (by situating it along major arteries?)
Two bucks is the standard, one-way, no-transfer fare for our CAT buses, so it makes perfect sense to apply the same rate to the (much less extensive) Monorail in order to stimulate ridership.