And they wonder why we want the mob back?? Smarter boys they were. “No gorilla, no choo choo stop” and they lost a ton of new business that could have been theirs.

The extension to the Airport is already approved. they now need to do environmental impact (how much noise will this add to the neighborhood??) and get the money. The county, the state and the feds are working on the agreement as we speak.

So if Obummer and buddies coughs up the ok, its a go. Too bad we don’t have a powerful senator from Nevada, who could move it all along…

The problem with most transit systems is that its always a long walk to get to a station and then another long walk once you are at the station. If you have a monorail you need those European style vertical conveyor belts for quick access between embarkation level and ground level, not wimpy escalators or umpteen-zillion stairs.

And it was a sound decision at the time. The Sahara Station, when the monorail first started, reported increased business at Sahara Casino stepped up over 60 percent. They discovered more people per hour coming in there. And it was directly attributable to the monorail stopping there.

But tourists don’t like it. They have to walk farther to get to the stations and vice versa…getting from the station and walking through meandering casinos to get to the Strip.

Another fallacy is that the Venetian and Wynn Casinos were not allowed or skipped in having monorail stations. Not true.

The Venetian was offered the opportunity to have a monorail station. They rejected it. So, the monorail went around them.

The reason why the Wynn Casino was not offered a monorail station was because they were not there at the time, nor was it even in the planning at that time. So a monorail station wasn’t offered because there was no one to offer it to. In all fairness to the Wynn, they did operate a bus service (during monorail operational hours) that connected the Convention Center with the Wynn. Not sure if that is there anymore though.

You mentioned before about the nub sticking out at Sahara, which was intended to be added on to in order to go downtown, Rex. From what I understand, original plans intended for it to go downtown, cutting over from the corner of Sahara and Paradise over to Las Vegas Boulevard heading north with four stations (Stratosphere, Charleston, Main and Fremont). This was the very first planned phase for extension of the monorail. Over a period of time, that fell apart. Because mainly there were major plans for restructuring and revamping downtown. So, plans were made incorporating a monorail station for Fremont Street, but then nothing was decided, and if things were decided, they changed the plans. All that time was wasted. In other words, it was useless to build towards downtown when no one knew where the monorail station for Fremont Street was going to end up at. And too much time was going by. So, it was abandoned.

Then, they looked the other way. Towards the airport. Plans were made, including (from what I understand) a station at the Thomas and Mack and Hard Rock Cafe, along with plans incorporated for a new terminal at the airport that would include a monorail station. The problem there was simple: Money for construction costs. Probably along with the “Taxi Mafia” doing their best to throw monkey wrenches in the gears any which way they could. I still get the strong impression they consider the airport THEIR territory and they don’t want another alternative of public transportation to touch it. There is no mistake about it: The taxi people HATE the monorail. They believe it will kill their business. And they are probably right.

As far as riff raff on the monorail, that’s really not the case. The monorail has their own armed security (tazers) complete with bomb sniffing dogs. And it is as safe as any public transportation possibly can be with their presence around. The criminal element has not taken it over at all. As a matter of fact, I go one step further and say that even the pillars supporting the monorail haven’t been “tagged” very much at all by graffiti artists. Because they know security is around pretty much 24 hours a day.

One thing I have noticed is that tourists seem to like it. Most locals (except the ones that use it…like Rex here) don’t. And locals have the mistaken belief that it was created with public money, when it wasn’t. But now, it looks like that will change. And I really don’t think people will be excited or agree about using Federal bailout money to keep it going. And I suspect the Federal bailout money will be used to construct the monorail addition that will extend from the south end of it (MGM Grand Station….with the nub sticking out and ending at the corner of Koval and Tropicana) over to the Thomas and Mack and eventually the airport. I believe the plans called for it to go north on Koval, then down Harmon (with a station possibly at Hard Rock), over to Thomas and Mack, then into a newly constructed terminal number 3 at the airport. If it gets approved.

One thing for sure, the monorail seems to have everyone else having an input on their fate, while they don’t have very much say in the matter at all. And the fact that, as it exists now, it appears to be doomed as a viable alternative with RTC. Not unless they get it extended either to the airport or downtown in order to get more business.

Yes, and look how well it’s worked out for them.

A mere 93% drop in two years.

Take that, fleas!!!

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=LVS