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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."
It really surprises me that the kind of people who have enough money to build a monorail weren't smart enough to think of this.
Who says they weren't smart enough? You're assuming the decisions on where the monorail will/won't go to were driven by logic and economics. This being a public works project, that's highly unlikely. it's far more likely the monorail's service locations were determined by who greased the local politicians to win the construction, labor, and supply contracts. That and also who paid/coerced the planning group the most to not disrupt local transport monopolies who stood to lose out on a captive market (i.e. taxis, etc.).
When a lot of tax money gets spent in a seemingly-stupid fashion, follow the money. You'll discover it wasn't the least bit stupid from the perspective of who made a killing on building the damned stuff or who would've lost business had the project been successful. Here in Atlanta (Democrat mayor) we spent $200 million on a stupid trolley. Who rides it? Almost nobody. But the company that built it made a handsome profit. Nevermind the taxpayers are left footing the bill for running a money-losing trolley service. They keep voting the same lackeys into office year after year no matter what so it's not like the politicians are ever held accountable.
DC (Democrat mayor) spent $200 million on a similarly-failing streetcar service. Projects in Cincinnati (Democrat mayor), Dallas (Democrat mayor), Detroit (Democrat mayor) and Honolulu (Democrat mayor) are dealing with similar problems: construction cost overruns, small ridership and no discernible evidence of economic benefits vs. costs. Not saying Republicans are immune to such shenanigans (see Bridge to Nowhere) but Democrats in particular seem to love spending tax money on stuff that never works as advertised. This is why I'm a Libertarian.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky