LVCVA Buys the Las Vegas Monorail for $24 Million
The Las Vegas Monorail is a 3.9-mile mass transit system located adjacent to the Las Vegas Strip. It connects several large casinos and until now it was owned and operated by the Las Vegas Monorail Company. A one ride ticket costs $5 and there are also unlimited ride tickets good for one through seven days.
The monorail opened for service in 1995 as the MGM Grand-Bally’s Monorail and in the current form in 2004. It has faced financial difficulty in recent years, but it also has been able to generate cash. The total annual ridership is roughly 5 million, but this year it has been shut down since March due to COVID-19.
Now the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has voted to buy the struggling Las Vegas Monorail for about $24 million. The LVCVA says this will open up transportation options along the famous Las Vegas Strip. Additionally, the deal would get rid of the monorail’s exclusivity agreement, which stopped other transportation options around the Strip.
Conversations about the LVCVA acquiring the monorail were initiated in January but were expedited in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Las Vegas Sun reports.
During the meeting it was revealed that without major upgrades, it’s likely that the Monorail system would only last about a decade longer. “To not have the Monorail run for the next eight or 10 years, that would be bad for the city. With us owning it, it provides a transition,” said LVCVA CEO, Steve Hill. He also noted that the elevated Monorail station to the immediate west of the Convention Center is an intriguing piece of real estate for the LVCVA with more than 11,000 square feet of office space.
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The reason it doesn’t go to the airport is because the airport is the impediment. They collect $2.45 per trip from the airport. They don’t want to lose that money. So there’s no way that the monorail could charge enough money to make a profit while also paying off the airport. For a $2.50 fare the airport would want $2.45 plus money airport badges for each employee, employee parking etc. So the impediment was never the 4 corporations that one the 15 taxi cab companies, but the airport because they don’t want to lose that money. The LAS airport is run like a cash cow to extract as much money as possible.
What’s strange is that when they started charging money form the airport it was only .20¢. Since no one complained it went up to .60¢. Then $1.20 then $1.80, then $2.20.
Why in the hell that does not run to the airport is one of life’s great mysteries. It is so, so stupid.
I’m certain the TAXi companies are greatly opposed to that idea because it’s their cash cow! And who do you think owns the majority of taxi licenses? City politicians! The same politicians who would vote on the matter!
I read a number of articles about how the taxi mafia was violently opposed to extending the monorail to the airport. Anybody who’s seen the gridlock on The Strip knows that having the monorail go from Fremont Street to the airport is pretty critical but the cab companies and rideshare companies don’t care about anything except short to mid term profits.
Just let them connect it to the airport!