The Las Vegas Monorail celebrated its 20th anniversary this week, giving away free tickets for local riders on July 15 and offering two-day unlimited ride passes for a discounted online price of $20 throughout the month.
Considering it runs four miles from MGM Grand to Sahara Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Convention Center, riding the elevated, electric train might be unfamiliar or downright unnecessary for locals—especially those who don’t spend much time on the Strip. The Monorail is designed for and largely used by Vegas visitors and convention-goers, and critics have complained about its limitations since it began operating, but transportation and tourism officials maintain it’s still an important mode of movement that helps drive the economy in Southern Nevada.
Since the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) acquired the assets of the Las Vegas Monorail Company out of bankruptcy in November 2020, ridership has returned to pre-pandemic levels of about five million passengers per year, and in the last 12 months, that number is close to six million, according to LVCVA CEO and President Steve Hill.
“The number of events up and down the east side of the resort corridor [where the Monorail runs] has continued to increase. You’ve got the Sphere opening, Caesars’ Forum [Conference Center] opening … and in the last year there have been quite a number of events at the Festival Grounds at Sahara and Las Vegas Boulevard. The Monorail does really well when the Festival Grounds has concerts,” Hill tells the Weekly. “And last year when the Formula 1 circuit was built with the congestion that created, it was great for the race, but also very helpful to get around when construction was taking place, and leading up to the race.”
The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC) oversees public transportation, manages traffic, funds construction projects and plans for growth, and it partners with many jurisdictions and companies like the Monorail to coordinate those efforts. CEO M.J Maynard says Clark County officials assembled a group last year to manage the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix and how to effectively move resort corridor workers around the race course, and the Monorail became an essential piece of that puzzle.
“F1 was such a great example for the Monorail to shine. A lot of [Strip] employees could park their cars at an LVCVA parking lot, hop on the Monorail and get right to their respective hotels,” Maynard says. “For many of them, it was the first time riding, and I heard it was like, ‘Yay! This is awesome! How do we get more Monorail?’
“For the next [Grand Prix] we are talking to the Monorail now about connecting our public transit riders to get them to the track. We all have the same commitment to the community, a commitment to finding and using the best way to move locals and tourists.”
Hill says ridership among convention-goers has likely increased as well because the LVCVA, which also operates the convention center, can more conveniently connect with trade show organizers and planners. “Prior to us owning the monorail, it was each company’s responsibility to do that, and they[the Monorail] were connected to roughly half, maybe more, of the shows in the convention center,” he says.
During a four-day convention in Las Vegas, the Monorail carries 140,000 passengers, equivalent to 70,000 car trips with two passengers per car, according to its website. It has now served more than 103 million riders with zero emissions, and has eliminated more than 41 million vehicle miles on local roadways and kept more than 600 tons of carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides from being emitted.
“We’re proud of it, we know it’s important, and we’re working to make sure a form of alternative transportation around that system remains in place for a long time,” Hill says. “It’s an important thing to do for the destination and we think we’re on the path to making that happen.”
WHERE WILL THIS TRAIN STOP?
The original segment of the Monorail is actually older than 20 years. It started in 1995 with service from MGM Grand to what was then Bally’s (now Horseshoe Las Vegas), and shut down years later for construction and expansion. The current system opened on July 15, 2004 with seven total stops.
The growth of the Las Vegas Strip in the last two decades certainly requires more integrated and diverse transportation options, but another Monorail expansion simply isn’t in the cards.
When the LVCVA bought it four years ago, officials estimated its trains and tracks would hold up for another 8-10 years. Replacing them would cost an estimated $250-$350 million, and Hill says the system doesn’t generate enough profit to pay for such a project, nor is the LVCVA in a position to subsidize that level of expense.
“We’re not seeing the deterioration of the trains as quickly as we expected to, which is great,” he says. “That has caused us to invest additional money in additional systems. The communications system is so old and obsolete, we cannot get parts. So we’re going to replace the entire communications system … because we didn’t want that to be what ended the life of the Monorail.”
Investments like those could keep things running smoothly even longer. A possible longer-term plan involves integration with the Boring Company’s Vegas Loop, the underground electric car transportation system that currently operates between two Las Vegas Convention Center stops and a third at Resorts World. A tunnel to UNLV is under construction and other plans include extensions to Harry Reid International Airport, Allegiant Stadium and Downtown Las Vegas.
“What we plan to do once the Monorail in its current structure is obsolete for whatever reason: the Boring Company is interested in buying it from us and putting a two-lane road on top of it, using it as part of their system, basically an above-ground tunnel,” Hill says. “That would be a terrific alternative.”
The RTC’s Maynard says any adaptation to a current system that even slightly pushes the community closer to a fully integrated transportation solution is a welcome project.
“When you look at the resort corridor, it’s the same asphalt footprint it’s been for decades. It’s landlocked, yet we’ve added T-Mobile Arena, Allegiant Stadium, a potential baseball stadium, thousands more hotel rooms and employees, and we’re expected to grow another 14% in population in the next 10 years,” she says. “We’ve always been known for world-class entertainment and [events] and now we’re a sports capital, but we do not have a world-class transportation system.”
One of the RTC’s recent successes is the Game Day Express, utilizing existing public transit vehicles and routes to pick up residents at popular neighborhood casinos and deliver them via bus to T-Mobile and Allegiant for Golden Knights, Raiders and UNLV games. It keeps cars close to home and off crowded roads during big events, and it’s one of the Valley’s smaller systems that can connect with other modes of transportation to create a more efficient network.
“In any community, the best mobility system is one that’s integrated,” Maynard says. “We’re all certainly working hard to diversify the economy in Southern Nevada, but the resort corridor is still our economic engine. We need as many modes as we can get if we want to stay viable.”
MONORAIL INFO
Hours: Monday, 7 a.m.-midnight; Tuesday-Thursday, 7 a.m.-2 a.m.; Friday-Sunday, 7 a.m.-3 a.m.
Price: $13.45 for a 24-hour pass up to $57.50 for a 7-day pass. Discounts are available for local residents.
Stops: MGM Grand, Paris/Horseshoe, Flamingo, Harrah’s/Linq, Las Vegas Convention Center, Westgate, Sahara.
Schedule: Trains arrive every 4-8 minutes.
Space: Each train can hold 222 passengers standing and seating.
Speed: Trains travel up to 50 mph.
More: lvmonorail.com
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