Hardly Anyone Wants to Ride the Las Vegas Monorail (vice.com) 294
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."
YVR (Score:5, Informative)
They also have much more specific destinations (Score:3)
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 lik
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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.
Exactly. I've used it as well and it is a really convenient way to get around.
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.
I've also been on that one, and haven't found it useful. It easier and quicker to walk fro one place to another, so the monorail offers no advantage. Plus, IIR, it only runs along part of the strip as well; and if yo want to go someplace across the street you still have a walk that may not be much longer than had you walked in the first place.
I would guess most people in Vegas want to stroll the strip and wander from place to pla
Dumb idea from the start (Score:5, Informative)
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
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Meanwhile, the city continues to force the hotels to build massive parking garages so nobody has trouble finding free parking, and then they wonder why nobody takes mass transit. It's nuts!
Re:They also have much more specific destinations (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Well, technically speaking, SkyTrain isn't a monorail. Both systems (Canada Line and Expo/Millenium Lines) operate on standard-gauge rails. The only really comparable thing is that they're both (mostly) elevated/grade separated systems.
The big issue with actual monorails, such as the one in Vegas, is that you can't switch tracks easily, can't have Ys, and all the other things that you can do with reasonably standard rail technology. Even if they wanted to expand the Vegas monorail, it's an incredibly inflexible system. Skytrain, on the other hand, if they have an issue at a given station, they can short run the trains at the stations on either side and run a bus bridge or similar.
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The big issue with actual monorails, such as the one in Vegas, is that you can't switch tracks easily, can't have Ys, and all the other things that you can do with reasonably standard rail technology.
Oh, that's really informative. I was trying to figure out what were the advantages/disadvantages of monorails, and Wikipedia didn't help at all. I can't see any advantages, though.
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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.
But the Vegas monorail isn't even useful if you just want to go up and down the Strip - because it doesn't actually run up and down the Strip, it runs up and down the back sides of the casinos, meaning the stops are actually like a quarter-mile away from the Strip. Walking or taxis end up being easier.
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If there's no alternative transportation, then it's a monopoly and probably doesn't deserve its success.
To actually be successful, the monorail has to do something better than the alternative modes of transportation. Given Vancouver's terrible streets (no left turn lanes! Anyone wanting to turn left simply stops in the "fast" lane and waits until there's a break in opposing traffic, meanwhile blocking a
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Re:YVR (Score:4, Interesting)
If there's no alternative transportation, then it's a monopoly and probably doesn't deserve its success.
Try again. Mass transit works just fine. The london underground has no monopoly, since there are trains, and roads with both private cars and buses.
Except the roads aren't an alternative not because the underground has a monopoly but because it has vastly greater capacity than the roads.
You don't know the half of it ... (Score:5, Informative)
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 ...
Re:You don't know the half of it ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly, the original project was between a select group of casinos. It wasn't about moving people around efficiently, It was about moving people from one group of casinos to ones owned by the same people, bypassing the rest. It was about making money for some casinos, not about moving people around.
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The Vancouver SkyTrain [wikipedia.org] system isn't a monorail, though; it's a fully grade-separated light-rail rapid transit system.
All three lines run on two rails, with an adjacent electrified third rail for power. Two of the lines use a linear induction motor drive, which requires an additional row of aluminum plates running between the two primary tracks. The third, newest line uses conventional electric motor propulsion.
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More like... the monorail has to do something useful. When I stayed there not long after the monorail opened, it was difficult to find and it took longer to walk to the monorail itself and then to my destination than to just walk to my destination anyway. I stayed at Bally's. I could walk anywhere I wanted to go -- the sidewalks are wide in Vegas, the streets have crosswalks that go over and above the streets. The strip is really designed for walking -- plus, the entrances are beautiful and facing th
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easy solution, run it to the airport (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:easy solution, run it to the airport (Score:5, Insightful)
It did have much higher ridership a decade ago, 7.9 million in 2007, sure the Great Recession made a huge impact in 2008, but why did ridership not come back? What happened in the intervening years?
Too late to reroute it now, but bringing it in close to the strip so that it was easy to board as a taxi would have been a really, really good idea. Have a people-mover in the casino take you right to the boarding platform. It should have been integrated into the entertainment spectacle environment, becoming part of the attractions.
And go to the dam airport! Geeze, how stupid can you get? Same with the LA Metro Green Line, that reaches the perimeter fence of LAX then veers away. Being able to use an urban rail system from the airport where you arrive and depart, to your hotel and destination sites, is an enormous advantage. The Washington Metro does this, and it greatly magnified its value and ridership. Adding an extension to McCarran is at least a possibility for the Las Vegas system.
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It is close to the strip -- as close as it can be, which is on the back side of the hotels that front the street. At the Hard Rock Hotel, I had a glorious view of the monorail track from my window. If the window had been capable of opening, I could have soft-tossed objects and hit it. Unless the casinos want massive concrete-and-rebar pillars in their front porches, it couldn't have been placed any closer.
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Running trains to the airport gets expensive quickly. Monumentally stupid for Las Vegas to not plan for it from the start (best chance in getting people to use a metro system throughout a visit is with an easy, direct connection from the airport).
As for LAX, unfortunately I don’t think it would have made a difference then, and it won’t now with the Air Train. The problem would have been the same either way: there simply isn’t a good way to serve all 8 terminals (T8 doesn’t count). Th
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So many decent mass transit ideas have died because they don’t serve the airport, which in every American city is the most obvious place to have a first transit line go.
This is why I want Uber to send the taxi lobby to the bottom of the Styx.
Re:easy solution, run it to the airport (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone coming off the plane heads for rentals and shuttle usually. Even in San Francisco where I know there's Bart service, I don't necessarily know if it's running that day or how many hours to wait or where to get the tickets and so forth. In that sense, the locals are still more likely to use the transit but it's not a common thing.
I've travelled to SFO a few times, and from the perspective of a foreigner:
Buying a ticket for the BART is easy at the airport - there are machines and ticket counters. You really want to get a Clipper Card though. I didn't think you could get one at the airport (I flew into San Jose when on the trip where I got mine, so I've never tried), but a quick check on the clipper card web site shows four locations inside SFO where you can get one.
Once you have a clipper card with some credit, just tap it to use BART, MUNI, or CalTrain.
The BART runs every day. The only slightly confusing thing is that after 9pm or all day at weekends there's a direct connection to Millbrae, but during the week before 9pm you have to go to San Bruno and then change to the red line if you want to go back to Milbrae. Although both BART and CalTrain have stops in San Bruno, they're about 10-15 minutes walk apart (as I discovered, when I got off the CalTrain at San Bruno expecting to get on the BART, on my way to the airport, on a very hot day) and the only place where the two join up is Millbrae. This only matters if you're heading south, if you're heading into San Francisco then just take the other direction.
There are a lot of hotels near BART stops, but there's also a lot of the city that's nowhere near the BART. These are mostly accessible by bus / tram (clipper card works on all of these), but the routing can be confusing.
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What amazes me about the US is that many people oppose funding pu
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I agree... and don't forget... they did one to Oakland International Airport, too.
Bay Area Rapid Transit, btw.
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When I consulted in downtown SF during the Nineties, BART offered frequent service from downtown to a cemetery not far from the airport. Then you had to wait two hours for the airport bus.
It's too far from the strip (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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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.
This.
Also you are able to start walking whenever you like. When you finally get to the monorail and after you've paid, you wait another 10 minutes for the train to arrive.
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Yep this. It's just never gone to/from anywhere that I wanted to go efficiently enough to bother. I find the free tram from Luxor/Excalibur/Mandalay Bay tram far more useful. If it could get me from say Wynn/Encore/Venetian to City Center/Aria I'd probably use it a lot.
Re:It's too far from the strip (Score:5, Informative)
And its generally set up that to get to it you have to go through the hotels, on a twisty route going through their gaming and stores. You spend 20 minutes going to/from on each side. That's why it failed.
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At the time they constructed it, it's where the available land was, so that probably saved them tens (if not hundreds) of millions of dollars. Until Vegas does the right thing and closes off the strip (between Tropicana and Sahara) to traffic, it's the best you can do.
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The point of monorails is you don't need land for the track, other than the small bits of land for the concrete pylons, and a bit of space at the stations.
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But the land and zoning for the infrastructure would have been VERY difficult to get on the strip side, because hotels would have had to demolish lobbies and casino space. By putting it in the back, they could work with existing spaces that weren't as high-profile, as well as not worrying about construction on the strip for the years it took to build.
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It could have gone straight down the middle quite effectively and economically and been integrated into the strip itself with stations. It also would have worked logically, as it is clear to anyone on the strip where it goes.
But negotiations are a bitch for that kind of thing.
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Driving down the strip at night, looking at the lights, and showing off your car is one of Vegas's main attractions. They'd be idiots to close the strip. More pedestrian skyways crossing the strip would be great. If there's a location for the monorail, it's up and down the center of the strip, but that would ruin the view, perhaps. I've ridden the monorail once, years ago. Our friends used it to get from the MGM to the strip, but I just walked there and back. Didn't even mind it in 115 degree heat.
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Elevating lets the traffic continue unabated, and there is often a lot of traffic on the Strip.
We're actually looking at buying a place. Strip or downtown, not sure. Possibly Summerlin, but that's so not Vegas.
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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.
Well...
I'm kinda wondering if this is deliberate.
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Short hops aren't really what Boring Company is about. It's about long stretches - having a long, limited-access "fast lane" with a bunch of onramps and offramps serviced by car / passenger elevators. With a route this short, you'd never get up to speed. Sort of defeats the purpose. There's going to be significant overhead with just starting and ending a tunnel - importing the TBM, digging the initial pit, lowering it in, setting it and its tailings system up, etc. Boring Company is designed to be able
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They should have shutdown street running down the strip and turned that into a monorail. That would have done it.
Re:It's too far from the strip (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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In fact, forget about the monorail...
did they consider putting it where people want it? (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
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They need to build it to the airport and build something around it, like a Disney resort.
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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's 2017 (Score:2, Funny)
Stereorails are what's needed.
(Someone had to say it).
Re:It's 2017 (Score:5, Funny)
Stereorails are what's needed.
(Someone had to say it).
The new kids have moved onto 5.1 rails.
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Too bad that 0.1 is underground because of the low frequencies.
Basic Problem (Score:2)
Failure Predicted in 1993... (Score:5, Funny)
Just ask anyone from Ogdenville, North Haverbrook, or Brockway.
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Stations force people to walk through Casinos (Score:5, Informative)
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.
1 passenger? Room for 221 strippers! (Score:2)
They just aren't Vegas enough yet. Add bars, slots and strippers until the train is profitable.
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Turn the monorail into its own Casino. Not a bad idea, actually.
Well, don't look at me (Score:2)
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.
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So its primary appeal was that nobody uses it. A few moments' thought may show you the problems with that as a business model.
Killer is that terminals generally not on street (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
Airport (Score:2)
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 ... )
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Extend it to the airport.
And to Downtown Las Vegas (Fremont Street)
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Downtown Vegas doesn't want to be connected. Everything there is already in easy walking distance, and generally more middle-brow than the Strip (including in price). If people could casually move from Strip to Fremont and vice versa, the two areas would begin to converge on their expenses and their clientele, and the Horseshoe, the Four Queens, the Lady Luck, the Fremont -- none of them want to compete heads-up with the Wynn and the Bellagio.
There's a reason why Fremont looks more like South Beach during s
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But the people who go to Vegas would like be to be able to take the monorail downtown. In between the resorts and downtown there is a stretch of service businesses who could use a fast way to bring in their workers.
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Fuck the cab drivers sideways with a bandsaw. All of them everywhere.
Why One Rail? (Score:2)
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.
Re: Why One Rail? (Score:2)
The main benefit of monorails is reduced visual bulk & less sunlight blockage.
The problem is, current ADA-imposed egress requirements for NEW monorails require a 3 foot pedestrian foot path, which is why Disney's is a narrow beam, while Las Vegas' is a hulking mass.
You Need a Monorail to Get to the Monorail (Score:2)
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
needs to go to the airport and cut the fair (Score:2)
needs to go to the airport and cut the fair
I like the monorail, but... (Score:2)
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 distanc
there is something unsettling about prefix mono- (Score:2)
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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those could also describe the number of stops. . . :)
hawk
Hey Vegas (Score:2)
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.
Trams, monorails and directions (Score:2)
- 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
The monorail to nowhere (Score:2)
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.
You know why? (Score:2)
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.
The monorail was never about transportation (Score:2)
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.
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except the route it takes doesn't follow the strip, hence, it mostly serves no one
It was going to be loss-leader by design (Score:2)
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. I
It has two problems (Score:2)
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.
The Las Vegas Monorail is fucking pointless (Score:2)
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?
Spectacle, not transit (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Star Trek Experience and Monorails (Score:2)
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.
Re:A Bunch of Mono-Rail Naysayers (Score:4, Funny)
How is a monorail transporting a single person shared transit?
Re:A Bunch of Mono-Rail Naysayers (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re: A Bunch of Mono-Rail Naysayers (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Un. Fucking. Believable. (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Un. Fucking. Believable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Taxi Drivers would like to have a word with you.
Re:Un. Fucking. Believable. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Un. Fucking. Believable. (Score:5, Informative)
MOST major airports have GREAT public transit.
Trust me, I fly a lot.
Maybe you speak about the US?
But my last US destination was Dallas. DART took me from my downtown hotel to DFW in no time. Cost me $5.
Re: Un. Fucking. Believable. (Score:3)
Vancouver, BC. Skytrain every three minutes, 15 minutes to downtown. Underground part of the route, elevated the rest of the way. Pretty amazing service.
Plus there are several other lines, mostly elevated. Top speed is 80km/h or so.
Re: (Score:3)
London: Tube and Heathrow Express goes to Heathrow, national rail services go to Stansted (station is underground, directly below terminal), not sure about Gatwick.
Paris: Charles De Gaul has direct rail links to the centre.
New York: From JFK, you have to take the Skytrain for a few minutes, then you're at the metro. From Newark, you take a train for about half an hour and then you're in the middle of Manhattan.
San Francisco: BART terminal in SFO, one st
Re: (Score:3)
Istanbul: I think taxis were the only option here.
Istanbul metro M1 ends at the airport.
Istanbul is a prime example of a huge city (15M) with well-working, comfortable public transport. Trams, metro, buses, taxes and boats (seabus / ferry) are everywhere. Tramway system is modern and works exceptionally well. I have been there with kids, the youngest being 3yo, and we had no trouble getting around.
Re:Predicted (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Predicted (Score:5, Insightful)
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.