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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."
You have to actually make a monorail do something for which there is no alternative transportation. The Vancouver Skytrain is actually the most efficient way to get across the city, so they get 117.4 million passengers in 2010 and 137.4 million in 2016.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
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.
When I was in Vegas it was almost always further to walk to and from the monorail than it was to just walk down the strip to where you wanted to go. It needed to be build on the strip, not behind the resorts.
I visited Vegas a couple of years ago, and the monorail was expensive, well hidden, and didn't go anywhere useful.
I don't think any of the potential passengers are likely anti-mono-rail, they just want to be taken somewhere useful for a reasonable price. They don't want to walk a block out of their way (and then a block back) to pay a ton of money, to take a trip that would have been faster to walk anyway.
This is a common problem with the "build it and they will come" mentality. Sometimes you have to build it somewhere people want to be...
Stereorails are what's needed.
(Someone had to say it).
It might have done better if they actually made it go someplace useful, like the airport. But they couldn't do that because they have to protect the taxicabs.
Just ask anyone from Ogdenville, North Haverbrook, or Brockway.
They destroyed the utility of this monorail by designing it so that many of the stations are at the BACK of the hotels. This forces people to take extremely long walks through the casinos to get to and from the station.
The transportation services that people actually use are accessed from the hotel lobby.
Make stupid station choices, get stupidly low ridership.
They just aren't Vegas enough yet. Add bars, slots and strippers until the train is profitable.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I actually rode it, earlier this year. Three times, no less. I appreciated getting away from the crowds for a moment, so it is certainly good for something.
They need to build it to the airport and build something around it, like a Disney resort.
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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 is nice, I've used it several times. Last time we stayed in an airbnb at the very north end of the monorail.
However, the solution to the problem is obvious. Extend it to the airport.
(The reason that doesn't happen is that Vegas doesn't want to anger all the cab drivers ... )
it's in my head
Screw that, the airport is ON the strip, the terminal should be on the other side of the runway and nobody would need ANY transportation to/from it!
But you have to protect that taxi lobby...
The funny (sad) part is that the private terminal that the wealthy fly in/out of *IS* on the strip side, but those people take limos to/from the airport and wouldn't walk anyway.
It seems from a basic design point that two rails should be easier, cheaper, and faster to build, while being safer.
I can think of very few situations where balancing a train on a single rail is a better design decision than using two rails.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
By the time you walk to the station, you might as well have just walked to your destination, they're so far back. And it's expensive on top of it. At least the one on the east side. It's a complete waste.
There's a free monorail on the West side of the strip, but it only travels between a few hotels (Monte Carlo to the Bellagio). That's the only one that makes sense to use.
They need just one monorail, going down the center of the strip, with "bridge" stops that let you get off on either side. Hell, I'd even buy a travel pass for that. I'd ride it just for the scenery.
How is a monorail transporting a single person shared transit?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Public transportation needs proper planning not being subverted by corporate interests.
needs to go to the airport and cut the fair
I visit Vegas 2-3 times per year, and usually ride the monorail a few times. I agree with all the posters here saying that it's not useful because it's in the back of the casinos - it would certainly be better if it was elevated over the strip. They should have decided 20 years ago to close off the strip to cars (between Tropicana, where MGM/NYNY/Excalibur/Tropicana are, and Sahara, where SLS and Stratosphere are) and put the monorail there.
That said, it's still VERY useful for traveling any sort of distances, especially if you're a hotel guest at one monorail resort, and are traveling to the convention center or the Linq Promenade). I still walk a lot in Vegas, but know when to use the monorail. That "last mile" to Mandalay is really annoying to get to from the last monorail stop at MGM - you have to cross Tropicana and LV Blvd, and it's all exposed/outdoors, unlike some of the walkways further north on the strip. It should go there, then to the airport.
They should have named it quadro-rail. Very incorrect, but with better marketing.
Or maybe, septra-rail.
Mono-rail just does not sound good. Gives a vibe of existential loneliness or an unpleasant disease.
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Extend the monorail to the airport and maybe it might actually get some use...
But that will never happen because the greedy taxi and limo drivers wont let it happen.
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Right now, it's :
- only in limited hotels
- is no where you can actually see it - you have to hunt for it
- goes no where useful like the airport/downtown/other end of the strip
- you get lost going to or from the station
- competes with several useless trams that visit 2 or 3 hotels of the same chain and are also frequently empty but confuse the situation
- almost impossible to find as there's little incentive for hotels to show you the way to it
If they placed the monorail above the center of the strip and ran it from the airport to downtown and made easy access to the hotels, it would be packed. Right now walking the strip is interesting, but painfully slow as getting through intersections requires an escalator raid up over and down the other side. Half the time the escalator is broken. I'd gladly pay the price of a monorail to get to where-ever our group is going. The problem is the hotels and taxi lobbies torpedoed anything useful.
It's aimed at tourists, so the locals owning cars is irrelevant.
The real issues as have been stated in a million comments by now is that it is easier to just walk down the strip or get a taxi and it doesn't go to the airport.
I'm sure the rides it does get are tourists using it one time which shows them that it's quicker to just walk, and it hits the convention center but that's not where the bulk of tourists end up.
There is already a tram from Excalibur (kitty corner to MGM Grand) to Mandalay Bay, and it's free, and it's actually on the Strip, not in the back alley like the Monorail. They screwed up by charging too much and not actually running it along the Strip.
There ya go. Turn them into mobile casinos to take you to the casino. A cocktail bar, a couple of poker machines, a little floor show...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Well, how public transportation using something similar to a modern monorail can be looked at in Wuppertal, Germany.
It's in operation since more than 100 years and had almost no accidents in that time (well an elephant from a circus fell into the river Wupper in the 20's)
Aww you're no fun...
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
YVR (which I've been on as well) is a really great monorail because it connects two places tons of travelers will be going to or from - cruiser terminal, and airport.
In Vegas you have a situation where people want to go all over the place. Some may want to go to the convention center, but they also want to go where they are staying - which could be anywhere. In recent years lots of people like the older downtown vegas area which I don't think the monorail even reaches.
I think when you have a situation like that a monorail is not going to be a cost effective way to move people around.
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If it ran from the airport to the strip it would be the most heavily trafficked monorail in the world. But, no. Instead of building the transportation system they really needed, they build a monorail track to nowhere.
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The final Monorail stop is approximately one mile from McCarran Airport, the main Las Vegas Airport. That last mile by taxi is around $20 bucks, by Lyft it is around $12. The monorail is a fixed $5 for the whole line. (local residents pay $1)
(guess here) 75% of the patrons in Las Vegas fly into McCarran Airport. If the Las Vegas Monorail were extended that last mile to the McCarran Airport it's ridership would quadruple.
Nobody, NOBODY! wants the Monorail to succeed. All the hospitality vested interests have no cake in the game of helping the monorail.
It is the easiest bet in Vegas, build the last mile to McCarran and ridership will become meaningful.
I took it last month on a short Vegas vacation. It's clean, fun, dependable, and very user unfriendly. One must repeatedly ask, and dig and dig to indentify a monorail station location. They are buried far away from the eyes of those customers, who the hospitality industry desperately need to stay put.
1. It's slow
2. It doesn't go anywhere other than the strip
3. Uber and Lyft competing with the monorail is absolute pure quill bull shit. I was in LV as a stopover for where I was going, and you could not get a cab - period.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
I don't understand why monorails are so slow-- that seems to be the attribute that kills them. I thought their major advantage was that they will never be at risk of having a collision with other traffic (like "light" rail does). If that is the case, why aren't monorails all 100 mph+?
I like monorails. I think they are a great idea (cheap mass transit removed from the danger of collision with individual and freight transport), but they always seem to go 45 mph or slower. It makes no sense to me. Roller-coasters go faster than monorails (I would love to see intra-city roller-coaster mass transit).
It was about serving casinos. Because that's what Vegas is about (I learned a lot when I lived there). Basically, if you understand a carnival midway, you understand the strip.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
https://slashdot.org/~fluffernutter observed:
You have to actually make a monorail do something for which there is no alternative transportation. The Vancouver Skytrain is actually the most efficient way to get across the city, so they get 117.4 million passengers in 2010 and 137.4 million in 2016.
We lived in Vegas when the monorail was built. There was, as you might imagine, a lot of coverage of the proposal, the construction of the track, and the grand opening of the line.
Of course, the coverage by the major dailies and the local media was mostly of the cheerleading kind. The alternative weeklies did a better job, but it didn't keep the deal with the Clark County supervisors from being made mostly behind closed doors. (The Strip, proper, lies entirely outside the City of Las Vegas, so the Vegas city planning commission, city council, and mayor had no seat at the table.)
What it boiled down to was that a private, non-profit (!) corporation formed by the casinos where the train actually has stations floated the bond for design and construction, with the voters on the hook to repay it - a typical Vegas klind of backscratching deal. If you didn't kick in, you didn't get to take advantage of the monorail traffic. Of course, since it was the big casinos financing it, one of the conditions they imposed was that it run behind them, so that patrons would have to walk through the gaming floor of each stop on their way to and from the train.
McCarren International Airport management took one look at the proposal and said, "No, thanks.". (It would have required McCarren to donate, get permits for, and clear the land across which the track would run, and build a terminal station, too - all at no expense to the hotel-casino operators who would gain the only real benefit from it. I thought McCarren's decision showed surprising common sense, under the circumstances.)
So that's why it doesn't run to the airport - or to the actual Strip - or stop at more than a handful of big casino properties. And, likewise, that's why it's an abysmal failure.
Vegas, baby ...
Check out my novel.
Big cities install monorail to make an sort of an urban architecture/style statement rather than something that people need or something that can pay off for itself (Look at us, we can spend a billion dollars on a useless but very pretty monorail).
This reminds me that useless half billion dollar 3-mile monorail connection from the Oakland BART station to the Oakland airport. For decades, the AirBART bus ferried people between those destinations incredibly cheaply (just 2USD) and very fast, 24 hours a day. It had to be replaced with a half billion dollar monorail, why? To be cheaper? To go faster? No.
Iconic AirTrain, connecting JFK to NYC subway system as well as to LIRR (Long Island Railways) It connects at two points. It is expensive, $5 for a short ride. However, convenience wise it is a really nice option to have it. The answer is .... the famous network effect. Connect Las Vegas Monorail to the Airport and enjoy the popularity.
I've lived hear nearly 30 yards, and the monorail was a stupid idea from the start.
The *only* way it would have or ever will make sense is if it went to the airport. The taxi companies have raised a ruckus whenever that has been suggested.
The stupid thing goes to the convention center and half a dozen participating hotels; it is nothing more than an attempt to lockin conventioneers to that set of hotels. Any expansion will just be more of the same.
Now, if you built something that went to the airport, the length of the strip, and downtown, it would be useful. But that's just not in the cards.
AFAIK, the only thing its ever done right is to escrow demolition funds when it was first built.
And now similar geniuses want to build a high speed train from Vegas to . . . Victorville. OK, other dumb ends have been proposed, but anything other than San Diego, LA, or *maybe* someplace in Orange county is back to just plain dumb. LA or San Diego without stops could actually make sense, as a 200mph run would take less time than dealing with two airports. But drive 100 miles to Victorville to catch a train to vegas??? Or take a train from vegas and, what, walk to LA
hawk
It doesn’t start at the airport, which is exactly where every potential customer for a transit link wants to get on it. And instead of bulleting down the center of the Strip, it weaves around the back of the hotels. Because it crosses the Strip in perhaps two places, it’s easy for people to forget that it exists.
those could also describe the number of stops. . . :)
hawk
Strip guests spend something like $1k per day on average, counting food, room and entertainment. Who the fuck is burning $1k a day and wants to take mass transit?
In fact, forget about the monorail...
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
The problem with the monorail is that it was designed as spectacle, not as transit, yet even as spectacle it fails because it's so out of the way that most people never even stumble across it, and if you do take it, all you see are the backs of hotels. It's even priced as spectacle. $2.75 gets you anywhere in New York City via the subway and bus, but it costs $5 to take the monorail just to go 4 miles along the backs of casinos in Las Vegas.
The monorail should have been built in the middle of the Strip. The Strip is a dystopian nightmare highway bifurcating one of the most walked streets in the United States. It's so dangerous that in many places there aren't even any at-grade pedestrian crossings; you have to go up stairs/escalators set back from the strip, go across a bridge, and then back down, often being forced to detour through one or two casinos in the process. It's the ultimate triumph of automobiles over people for no goddamn reason at all.
The mass transit should have been run right down the middle of the Strip. Instead it was forced to the margins where it remains unused, when it was really the car traffic that should have been forced to the margins. Las Vegas should do a NYC-style "Summer Streets" a few times per year and entirely close down the Strip to car traffic for half a day and let pedestrians use it as they'd like, like Mardi Gras. Then people would realize what they've been missing.
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I rode the monorail from MGM Grand to the Hilton (now Westgate Las Vegas) the first time I visited Las Vegas, to check out the Star Trek Experience. Now with the STE closed I see no reason to ride it again.
Expensive, not very scenic and now a road to nowhere.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Only if you live in a country with no public transport. In countries with good public transport systems everyone uses them, and proximity to a station plays a significant factor in property value.
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.
You have to actually make a monorail do something for which there is no alternative transportation.
I'm in the minority and found the monorail useful. Stay at cheap casino on strip and take monorail to the casino on strip you really want to be at. Especially in summer where walking isn't much of an option. :-)
Moving the terminals is impractical, but they could provide direct routes with people movers. But the hotel/casinos want the foot traffic through the casino. You have to walk through the casino to get to the taxi stops or street as well. So the best that's doable is probably to add people movers to get you between terminal and casino quickly.
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Shared transit benefits society in hundreds of ways..but if you prefer to sit in a Taxi stuck in rush hour traffic, be my guest.
That is absolutely true. Transit systems are amazing when they provide efficient means to get lots of people from their origin to their destination.
The problem with this monorail (and far too many public systems as well) is that it does not get people from their origin to their destination. The system does connect with one well-populated endpoint (in this case the downtown casinos on the Las Vegas Strip) but does not connect them to other useful locations. There are many good systems that connect popular destinations, usually a combination of city centers, a major airport, multiple major residential areas, and often some lesser destinations like executive/private airports, smaller civic centers and community centers, shopping venues, and other places people want to go.
I've been in cities where the mass transit connects things well. New York does the connectivity part very well, assuming you can stand the smell of the system. San Francisco's BART is hit-or-miss, either you get a great employer with shuttles to a station or offices near a station on one end plus happen to live relatively close to a station, or the system is near-worthless except to reduce traffic. Salt Lake City does it surprisingly well, mostly because the 2 million people live between a strip of mountains and lakes about 5 miles wide and 100 miles long, with long-distance rail systems running the entire length and short-distance rail systems running in the middle 40 miles, all fully integrated with a bus system. Others in the topic have already mentioned Austin's system, which runs from downtown up to a university, and then meanders through a single residential area with very few stops; it completely avoids the airports, the major shopping districts, and has virtually no stops in residential areas and also has no spurs or coordinated buses in residential areas, so it gets very little use.
All mass transit systems have difficulty with the 'last mile problem' in residential areas, but for good transit systems that is the only difficult issue to overcome.
The Las Vegas monorail is NOT one of those systems. It fails in the first step of actually connecting both the origin and the destination. The cities that connect people with the places they want to go generate massive ridership numbers.
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Buses along the strip are routinely packed full.
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
If they added routes that would take you to the front of the casino, plenty would go right inside - they could have a path leading into the casino, and a part directly to the street. As it is they get very little foot traffic from the rail because few are using it, so if they made the whole system more usable with more riders, they would probably get a higher percentage of people coming in even with the option not to.
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People who benefit from the current order of graft don't like change to the current order. Weird.
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.
If the monorail ran along the strip and to the airport, I'd use it whenever I visited. Instead it runs WAY in the back of the hotels behind the casino - its almost never the quickest /easiest way to get anywhere.
Considering its route, I don't know who they expected would ever use it.
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.
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I think [monorails] are a great idea (cheap mass transit removed from the danger of collision with individual and freight transport)
I don't know why on earth you think that monorails as a type should be removed from the danger of collision. As soon as you have more than one vehicle on a system there is a collision possibility, whether it is a monorail, conventional rail, light rail, road, sea or air. Maybe the Las Vegas system (being short) has only one train running on it at any time (I don't know), but that will not be viable for a longer system.
In fact the one-vehicle-on-a-system approach was used a lot in conventional rail systems in the past, and still to some extent today, particularly on single-line branch and freight lines where there might be only a one train per hour service anyway. In steam days it was called "One engine in steam", and while the branch was connected to the main line with points (= US "swiches"), those points used to be literally padlocked by the signalman against running through except for occasions like when the branch loco needed to go off to the main works for overhauls. Today the locking will be done electronically from the line control centre.
1. From one casino on the strip to other nearby nearly identical casinos.
It is not even this good. The monorail is all the way in the back of the casinos so it is still easier to walk. I'm in Las Vegas several times a year and the only times I found it useful was to go to the convention center for CES or SEMA. For CES 2017 that didn't even make sense with Uber/Lyft having such optimized systems and pick up places.
Well, sir, there's nothing on earth
Like a genuine, bona fide
Electrified, six-car monorail
What'd I say?
Monorail
What's it called?
Monorail
That's right! Monorail
Monorail
Monorail
Monorail
I hear those things are awfully loud
It glides as softly as a cloud
Is there a chance the track could bend?
Not on your life, my Hindu friend
What about us brain-dead slobs?
You'll be given cushy jobs
Were you sent here by the Devil?
No, good sir, I'm on the level
The ring came off my pudding can
Take my pen knife, my good man
I swear it's Springfield's only choice
Throw up your hands and raise your voice
Monorail
What's it called?
Monorail
Once again
Monorail
But Main Street's still all cracked and broken
Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken
Monorail!
Monorail!
Monorail!
Monorail!
Mono, d'oh!
... has a monorail, goes around downtown without going anywhere useful (except a casino). Doesn't go the 15 miles to the airport.
I guess there's a trend there.
It's not Batman!
I went to las vegas and didn't even realise there was a monorail...
Given the route it's not surprising, why go through a casino to the back and pay to get on the monorail when you could just walk along the strip or through the casinos?
If you've going to pay, you could just take a taxi along the strip instead.
If the monorail ran along the strip it would be more visible to tourists and get more users. Where it is currently, many visitors have no idea it even exists.
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For journeys to airports, I see people carry around 10 times the luggage on an average than they carry for other commutes / journeys within the city. To accommodate luggage that takes much more space than interstitial space between human beings, the design of the interior of the local transport needs to be vastly different.
If you design all transport to accommodate luggage, it wastes space. If you don't design the airport transport to accommodate luggage, it might get too crowded to carry luggage while mounting and disembarking from the transit. If you design only the transit serving the airport to accommodate luggage - that is difficult to do as the idea of the transit is to serve multiple purposes in a unified manner.
Do you see any solution for carrying luggage other than over-designing ?
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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.
Exactly.
I go to Las Vegas on business on a semi regular basis. It's a one hour flight for me and generally I can get done what I need to do in a day, and it's generally connected to a trade show in one of the hotels currently served by the Monorail.
ANY sort of taxi/rideshare in Vegas is a crapshoot (ha!). The taxi companies all "change shifts" at the time people are generally leaving the LVCC or hotels, so there's a huge line to get a lift to the airport. If the Monorail actually RAN to the airport it would be packed, but I'm sure the taxi & limo companies will block that - and they both own and lease enough politicians in town to make sure that never happens.
No sig
The Las Vegas monorail is largely pointless. Most people on the strip want to walk on the strip, not bypass it on a stupid train.
i was in Vegas a few months ago, used the monorail a lot,and the cars were always about half full: this was a weekend.
what will really drive use on this thing is all the strip casinos suddenly charging for parking. If you wanna move around, you're gonna pay one way or another.
I would agree the stations are oddly placed, and hard to find though.
They already have a hockey team there, been there for a year: Golden Knights. They're actually in first place in the AHL western conference pacific division.
It would look like crap but would be so much more useful right down the center of the strip.... or maybe under it.