Las Vegas Monorail Finally Ready To Open 469
doormat writes "The Las Vegas monorail is finally set to open to the public on July 15th! The project has had some problems - it was originally scheduled to open in March. The first part of the monorail, which uses Bombardier M-VI train vehicles, 'a derivative of the famous Walt Disney World Mark VI trains', is 4 miles long and connects several casinos on the east side of the Las Vegas Strip (see map, QT video), as well as the Las Vegas Convention Center (Home to CES, NAB, Networld+Interop and what was Comdex). Future phases seek to expand the monorail to downtown to the North, the west side of the strip, and eventually the University and the airport (which the taxicab and limo groups fight tooth and nail). I swear it's the strip's only choice... throw up your hands and raise your voice! Monorail, Monorail, Monorail! Mono... D'oh!"
Re:Yipee!!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Ummm... huh?
I hope you mean only releasing the source code for those who would like to see it, and not that you want the code developed according to the usual open source models.
Developing a system to control a vehicle carrying people is one thing that, at least i for one think, should be done by a set of well coordinated group of professionals.
Re:Yipee!!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you even know how maglev works? Why on earth would you think that maglev would be
a: efficient
b: affordable
or c: even doable in a 4 mile stretch?
"Oooh!. Maglev! Let's do that!" Try to get beyond the buzzwords.
"finally" (Score:1, Insightful)
Its a miracle.
Re:Yipee!!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Being as the vast majority of the Las Vegas economy seems to revolve around liberating cash from tourists, looks like a good thing to me.
Besides, that $654 million dollars came entirely from the private sector, through direct financial contributions and bonds. The taxpayers of Clark County aren't paying for it, so why the hell are you bitching?
Re:I guess you never been in Vegas... (Score:1, Insightful)
The LV Monorail will be of limited value until it connects to the airport, bypassing the shuttle and cab nightmare (much like Atlanta, for example).
It's meant for tourists on the Strip. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it doesn't get to the airport yet and has yet to cover the entire strip, but it's a start and will be a boon to many who regularly visit Vegas.
Re:i've always wondered... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is that? Brilliant marketing and lobbying over decades by the auto and airline industries.
Re:i've always wondered... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the wrong question. You should be asking why we lost the one that we had. At the beginning of the century you could travel to almost anywhere you wanted to go in the US by rail. Little villages all across countryside had passenger rail service, most with multiple stops a day.
Re:Yipee!!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Governments SHOULD do this type of investing. If they did it correctly, we wouldn't have to pay taxes anymore. My dream is to build the federal treasury to a point where it operates off an annuity with no more income from the people. Granted, this will take a lot of upfront investment by the people, but it's a damn good thing.
Now to get elected...
Re:Limousines and the free market (Score:4, Insightful)
If you had planned your route in advance, carefully, instead of just winging it, you might have taken the right bus. For example, I can drive to "University Ave" and be miles away from the actual University.
The cabs aren't there because, as you say, you were in the "middle of nowhere". If this were a cab driver forum, you'd find no sympathy. Plus, if you happened upon a pay phone or thought ahead to bring a cell phone while traveling, you could call a taxi dispatcher. Or lacking a phone number for taxi dispatch, called local directory service (hint: 411 isn't just asking for girls' numbers) and a taxi would come.
In fact, it seems like your case is an excellent example of consumer choice--except you made some pretty naive choices. But since you were a tourist, I suppose it's excusable. Just plan ahead when you travel next time...you're a student, so you should be good at researching these kinds of things!
Re:i've always wondered... (Score:1, Insightful)
It's not like the Transcontinental Railroad in the US was done over 100 years ago or anything...
Re:It's meant for tourists on the Strip. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's meant for tourists on the Strip. (Score:1, Insightful)
Nobody ever counts the road subsidies (Score:3, Insightful)
It's A Difference In Population Mass (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm an American currently stationed in Germany and I used to wonder the same thing myself before I got over here. Here's why it won't work the same.
Over here in Europe the populations are clumped together a lot more than in the states. In Germany all the villages are pretty tightly packed. You don't have big yards, many people live in small houses that are right up against the next house or at most has a small alleyway seperating the houses. You have these little villages and then you'll have a kilometer or three of farm land or woods and then the next village. In the states everyone has a big back yard, a house, and we aren't living right on top of each other. Our suburbs and definatly our rural areas are more spread out.
It's not feasible for every village in the US to have a train station or bus stop because with everyone so spread out it might be a couple mile walk to the nearest public transportation pick up. Where I grew up, Maine, NY [bigdorkonline.net], I was a few miles away from the center of the town and at least 6 or 7 miles away from the nearest bus stop. Where in Germany they are never more than a half mile or so from the nearest bus stop, or so it seems to me.
And so that's my opinion of why the US cannot have a mass transit system like they have here in Europe.
It's because of high parking costs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other news, new trains in Minnesota (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead we build a choo choo train! Current cost is $712 million,
Well, a train is infinitely* more useful than a stadium, so why complain? Transportation is part of the government's business, after all, while entertainment isn't. The idea of "creating jobs" never held much water because the jobs at a stadium, such as hot-dog vendor, aren't exactly great.
Instead we build a choo choo train! Current cost is $712 million, although it was only estimated to cost $444 million. For those unfamiliar with Minnesota, we've got some of the best highway infrastructure in the country and we're about as spread out as a metropolitan area can be, so trains aren't exactly an efficient solution to traffic congestion, especially when the train only travels 12 miles.
Yeah, but do you really think anyone's going to be driving cars in 25 years? Individual transport is already a pretty irresponsible use of oil and it is only going to get more so as oil becomes scarcer and scarcer and more and more wars are needed to secure oil fields in the hands of friendly governments. Sounds like MN is actually thinking about the future for a change. Good for them.
Re:Yipee!!!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems odd that they would go to the expense of steam heating the "track", it seems that it would have been cheaper to just cover the whole thing. Covering the track would greatly reduce the need for steam heating and reduce or eliminate weather related deterioration of the track, mechanicals, and possibly the cars.
Re:i've always wondered... (Score:5, Insightful)
Vegas Taxis Severely Inadequate (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, this would be a lot more palatable if the taxi and limo services provided remotely acceptable service. When I'm landing in Vegas I don't give a crap about the $10 - $20 for the cab fare - what I hate is standing in a line of 3,000 people for 45 minutes waiting for a cab. In fact, if there were a line for the cheap monorail and little or no line for the cabs, I would still gladly take the cabs - I'm on my way to meet friends from other cities and I already know I'm going to lose money.
Everyone arrives in Vegas on Friday at 7 PM. The Vegas taxi queue is an impressive one, with 20 or 30 stands, but it's still entirely inadequate. When moving large volumes of people from one fixed point to another fixed point (airport/strip), it's worthwhile looking into systems designed to transit people in mass numbers.
Re:i've always wondered... (Score:1, Insightful)
The big problem with mass-transit in the U.S.:
If you have to drive to get to where you can take mass-transit... why not just drive straight to your destination. (Most of the cost of owning a vehicle isn't the cost of gas.)
MT really only works well if you can use it 100% of the time (or near enough).