Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

editorial:

Light rail key to ensuring visitors enjoy Las Vegas — and come back

When a big event such as a marquee fight or a major concert happens on the Strip, Las Vegas Boulevard turns into a gridlocked disaster of honking horns, grumbling tourists and the constant tick, tick, tick of taxi meters racking up heavy fares.

Now, let’s compare that scene with this past Saturday night in Denver, where tens of thousands of sports fans turned out as the Broncos played a preseason NFL game at the same time the Rockies faced the Chicago Cubs.

In Denver’s Lower Downtown area, home of Coors Field and a huge restaurant-bar district that serves as a central meeting spot for Broncos and Rockies fans, postgame traffic flowed smoothly as people piled into buses and a light-rail system that make up the city’s extensive and efficient public transportation system.

Was the district crowded? Very. Was traffic a mess? Not even close. By Las Vegas standards, it was like a lazy weekday afternoon — even though the Broncos drew more than 75,000 fans and the Rockies got more than 48,000.

Just think about how ugly congestion would get on the Strip if we had two events of that size going on simultaneously.

With that vision in mind, it’s imperative for decision-makers to include a light-rail system in their ongoing discussion about building an NFL stadium and expanding the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Recently, state Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson suggested it might be necessary to bundle the stadium and convention center projects together to draw the political support needed to approve both projects. Public funding would be needed for both, and Roberson said he didn’t think the $1.4 billion convention center expansion would draw enough votes on its own.

Good for Roberson to raise the flag, because Las Vegas needs the convention center enlargement and the stadium — at least as long as the stadium can be built mostly with private money with a reasonable amount of public funding.

But light rail is an imperative need, too — not a wish-list item, but a necessity.

Here’s why: There’s simply no way the traffic-clogged Strip can handle tens of thousands of football fans and extra convention visitors. We’ve got to make it easier for people to get around town, enjoy our attractions and spend their money, like leaders in such cities as Denver; Orlando, Fla.; and Phoenix have done.

People standing in line for taxis or ride-share vehicles — or stuck in traffic — aren’t gambling or spending their money on meals, nightclub visits, souvenirs, drinks, show tickets and such. A light-rail system would greatly reduce the friction of getting from Point A to Point B in Las Vegas, which would boost the city’s revenues substantially by making it easier for people to reach the places where they want to drop some cash.

What’s more, without transportation system enhancements, it doesn’t make sense to bring in the Oakland Raiders and build onto the convention center. It would be like adding water slides to a kiddie pool; there’s simply not the capacity to handle the improvements.

Sands Corp. CEO Sheldon Adelson recently suggested that the city’s traffic infrastructure could handle stadium crowds, but anyone who believes that should try traveling on Las Vegas Boulevard between Tropicana Boulevard and Flamingo Road the next time there’s a big fight or concert at T-Mobile Arena. One tip: Grab some takeout food before you go because you’re going to be cooped up in your car for a while.

And for those who believed Adelson when he dismissed the convention center expansion as “not even a nice-to-have,” remember that he owns the Sands Convention Center and therefore has a vested interested in opposing the project.

Meanwhile, proponents of a multiphase light-rail project in Las Vegas believe a 5.5-mile section stretching from McCarran up Las Vegas Boulevard to Sahara Avenue could be completed for about $400 million.

With the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee scheduled to meet again today, it’s time to fold light rail into the conversation.

Granted, it’s late in the process, given that the committee is aiming to issue a recommendation in early September.

But at the very least, the committee should start working toward getting agreement on light rail heading into the 2017 legislative session.

Unless there’s movement on light rail, and fast, we risk damaging our key asset: the Las Vegas visitor experience.

If someone came here for a football game, a convention or anything else only to get jammed in traffic and hit with whopping expenses for taxis or ride-share transportation, why would he or she want to come back?

Again, let’s compare Las Vegas and Denver. In Denver, visitors can catch a train from the airport to downtown or other areas for $9 per ride. It’s a 30-minute trip to the central metro area from the airport, which was built so far east of Denver that people joke it’s in Kansas.

In Las Vegas, where we were wise enough not to build our airport in such a remote area, a rail ride would be quicker and perhaps cheaper, maybe even free depending on how the system would be funded.

That would be a much better way to welcome people to Las Vegas than the current setup: a long taxi line and congested roads.

Eventually, the system could be expanded to connect downtown and North Las Vegas, creating a way for thousands of Strip workers to travel inexpensively and efficiently to their jobs. Such an expansion also would help supercharge the economic development of North Las Vegas by linking the airport and Strip to sites such as the Faraday Future car-manufacturing plant and the Hyperloop One facility in Apex Industrial Park.

Las Vegas is moving in the right direction thanks to the Apex developments and the opening of T-Mobile Arena on the Strip, and we’re poised to make even more impressive strides with the stadium and convention center projects.

But unless we start moving at full speed on a way to move people through our community more efficiently, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.

We’re also giving up ground to cities like Denver that have figured out that light rail is a key to attracting visitors and keeping them coming back.

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