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Hardly Anyone Wants to Ride the Las Vegas Monorail (vice.com)
Motherboard describes riding the Las Vegas monorail in 2008. "I was literally the only person on a train built to carry 222 people," arguing that "the tale of the Las Vegas monorail is an allegory for almost every other monorail that exists on this planet." An anonymous reader quotes their new report:
Las Vegas has struggled to deliver on its monorail promise since the 3.9-mile track opened in 2004. The track runs parallel to the Strip -- behind all the massive, block-wide hotels. When the project was first proposed, promoters hoped to bring upwards of 20 million riders a year. In 2016, just 4.9 million monorail rides were taken. For reference, nearly 43 million people visited Las Vegas last year, according to the city's visitor bureau, and the city has a population of about 632,000.
In 2010, the not-for-profit company in charge, named Las Vegas Monorail, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after failing to repay $650 million in construction loans. (It exited bankruptcy proceedings two years later.) But in true Las Vegas style, instead of taking the loss and heading home with its tail tucked between its legs, the company is doubling down. Now it's anticipating spending an additional $100 million in private financing to extend the monorail from the MGM Grand to Mandalay Bay -- a distance of less than a mile by foot. The company also asked the county to give it $4.5 million of public funds a year for 30 years to support the extension.
A Las Vegas newspaper got a succinct appraisal of the extended monorail's prospects from the director of USC's Transportation Engineering program: "I'm glad it's not my money." Next year ticket sales are expected to bring in just $21.4 million -- "the lowest amount since 2014" -- with the Monorail Co. blaming "additional competition" from Uber and Lyft.
But Motherboard argues that it's not just a Las Vegas problem. "In most cities where monorails exist, most people can't figure out what they're good for. In Mumbai, India, a three-year-old monorail does just 17,000 daily rides -- significantly short of the 125,000 to 300,000 passengers per day planners and backers anticipated."
In 2010, the not-for-profit company in charge, named Las Vegas Monorail, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after failing to repay $650 million in construction loans. (It exited bankruptcy proceedings two years later.) But in true Las Vegas style, instead of taking the loss and heading home with its tail tucked between its legs, the company is doubling down. Now it's anticipating spending an additional $100 million in private financing to extend the monorail from the MGM Grand to Mandalay Bay -- a distance of less than a mile by foot. The company also asked the county to give it $4.5 million of public funds a year for 30 years to support the extension.
A Las Vegas newspaper got a succinct appraisal of the extended monorail's prospects from the director of USC's Transportation Engineering program: "I'm glad it's not my money." Next year ticket sales are expected to bring in just $21.4 million -- "the lowest amount since 2014" -- with the Monorail Co. blaming "additional competition" from Uber and Lyft.
But Motherboard argues that it's not just a Las Vegas problem. "In most cities where monorails exist, most people can't figure out what they're good for. In Mumbai, India, a three-year-old monorail does just 17,000 daily rides -- significantly short of the 125,000 to 300,000 passengers per day planners and backers anticipated."
People have no trouble figuring out "what monorails are good for." Since they refused to run it to the airport, which would be easier than running it to Mandalay Bay, the project was doomed from the start. What people can't figure out is what the people who design these billion dollar projects are good for.
I used the monorail once when I was at CES. Happily there is a monorail stop right outside the convention, that part works pretty well.
But the other stops are all nuts. You have to long a long ways out of the terminals and THEN you are dumped right into the casino of whichever hotel you stopped at. It makes for a super horrible walking experience and really makes you think twice about ever taking the thing, when you could just walk along the road and almost be there quicker for most stops.
Perhaps it could still be a good idea if they provided quicker egress (I seem to remember a few places you could get on without going through a casino, just not off).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The monorail in Vegas does NOT go to the airport.
What the fuck is wrong with those people? Austin did the same God Damned stupid thing with their stupid fucking train. It goes from waay north to downtown but not to the airport.
What were those morons thinking?
"Hmm...we have people at the airport who want to go to the Strip/Downtown and we have people who are on the Strip/Downtown and they want to go to the Airport.
So let's fucking build a monorail/train that doesn't go to the airport!"
What.
The.
Fuck?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I don't understand why monorails are so slow-- that seems to be the attribute that kills them..
No. This is wrong. The attribute that kills monorail is that the rails go where the designers wanted people to go, rather than were people actually want to go.
Where people want to go:
1. From the airport to the strip.
2. From outlying hotels to the strip.
Where the rails actually go:
1. From one casino on the strip to other nearby nearly identical casinos.
I don't understand why monorails are so slow-- that seems to be the attribute that kills them.
Safety issues, mostly, at least for Alweg-style trains like those run by Las Vegas and Disneyland/Disney World. The trains run on rubber tires, and are kept stable on the beam by tires that run along the sides. If you have a tire that's underinflated, or if a bearing on a side tire seizes and the tire starts getting dragged along the concrete, there's a non-trivial danger of fire - Disney suffered a really bad monorail fire in 1985 that was caused by this.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
We rode it a bunch one visit because we stayed at the Hilton way at one end of the strip and wanted to get to a bunch of different places. But it was a hellacious walk from the monorail to the strip, usually a maze-like walk through a casino.
I always thought it should have been built as a streetcar type system right on Los Vegas Boulevard in its own dedicated lane. Right at street level where people walk, and easy on/off for stopping up and down the strip.
The strip is an awful crush of traffic 24 hours a day. I've taken cab rides that took longer than walking would have because traffic was so bad. They really ought to consider closing it to only cabs and some kind of street car.