Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

Sun Editorial:

Monorail extension deserves to be in transportation mix

Monorail Anniversary

Sam Morris

A train leaves the Convention Center station during the Las Vegas Monorail’s 10th anniversary celebration Saturday, July 26, 2014.

You’ve just finished a day representing your company at a trade show at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, and it’s time to head back to your hotel.

Unless you’ve been lucky enough to get a room nearby, you’re probably hailing a taxi or ride-share vehicle and hoping against hope that traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard is moving faster than a 4-year-old on a tricycle.

The Las Vegas Monorail Co. wants to change that.

It’s hoping to extend its current system about a mile south of the current terminus at the MGM Grand, a project that would unify the city’s major convention areas and make Las Vegas a more attractive destination for business travelers and tourists alike. With the extension, the monorail would go from linking 4.4 million square feet of convention space to 8 million square feet, with new stops at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center and Sands Convention Center joining existing stations at the Las Vegas Convention Center and MGM Grand Convention Center. In addition, the monorail serves smaller facilities at such resorts as the Flamingo, Linq, Westgate and SLS Las Vegas.

To bring the project to life, the monorail company is asking the Clark County Commission to allow it to borrow up to $4.5 million in public funding per year for 30 years to extend the monorail to the Mandalay center and also build a new station along the line.

The money wouldn’t be used for construction of the project, which is projected to cost $100 million-plus, but rather would serve as a credit enhancement to help the company secure low-interest bonds to build the extension.

The funding would be available if something unexpected occurred — for instance, if the monorail were to suffer a loss in ridership revenue because of another economic downturn, or if the company’s projections on revenue that will be generated from the extension turned out to be drastically off.

That’s a worthwhile commitment of tax revenue, which in this case would come from Strip hotel room taxes.

To illustrate a key reason why the plan is valuable, imagine you’re the manager of a convention in another state and are considering moving it to Las Vegas.

One of your key considerations is whether the new convention site will be easily accessible for attendees, and therefore it would sweeten the Mandalay Bay center’s attraction to be connected to the rest of the convention areas. (The Excalibur/Luxor/Mandalay Bay string of resorts is linked by its own monorail, separate from the Las Vegas Monorail.)

If expanding the monorail line would help MGM Resorts draw even a few more conventions to its Mandalay Bay center, the project would easily pay for itself in economic benefit to the community. Consider that a big event like the annual World of Concrete expo, which drew about 48,000 participants this year, produces $63.1 million in nongaming economic impact, while even a more modest convention, like the International Baking Industry Expo, generated $18.7 million in direct visitor spending last year from its 20,000 attendees.

The project received tentative approval from the commission in November, and the company made plans to break ground in the second quarter of 2017. But then came an unforeseen conflict. The design required a support column to be built within an easement for a pipeline that serves as the primary water supply for the Strip, so construction of the 1.14-mile extension was put on hold over concerns it could block or damage the pipe.

The route has been changed, however, and the Southern Nevada Water Authority has approved the revision. Next up, McCarran International Airport must approve the new route, which extends over parking lots on airport property.

When executives from the monorail company went back to the commission this year to request the commitment of public funding, they received a cool reception. Commissioners raised questions about whether the company would generate enough ridership fares to pay for the constructions costs and about the monorail’s debt.

Those are fair questions, given the monorail’s history. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2010 after failing to draw enough revenue to pay back $650 million in construction loans. Two years later, it exited bankruptcy proceedings.

But the company has already provided county staff with a ridership study containing revenue estimates on the Mandalay Bay extension, and it’s working on a similar study for new station. The company says its ridership revenue will cover construction costs, operational costs and debt service. It says it may never need to touch the public funding.

But even if it does, it’s just as clear now as it was in November that the extension is a good concept.

That’s not only the case for Mandalay Bay conventiongoers, but visitors in the nearby resorts and for resorts up and down the Strip.

In an economy driven by tourism and conventions, anything that reduces traffic congestion on Las Vegas Boulevard is definitely worth considering.

Plus, the most recent data from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority show that convention traffic has been flat for the last couple of years, so we need to spur some growth.

The monorail should be part of a solution that also includes a light-rail system connecting McCarran International Airport to the Strip and running up the boulevard. Both options should exist.

The Strip works — and therefore Las Vegas works — because historically it has been connected and dense. Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority data show that the average visitor wanders in and out of six casinos and gambles in two, so creating tourist and convention islands is counterproductive. Connectivity, on the other hand, helps every player in the tourist corridor.

The monorail is an effective, clean option to help tie the Strip together. In 2015, the monorail reduced passenger vehicle traffic by an estimated 2.3 million miles and reduced emissions by nearly 30 tons of greenhouse gases.

What’s more, the monorail helps connect the north Strip to the heart of the resort corridor thanks to stations at SLS Las Vegas and the Westgate.

The monorail company still has some questions to answer, but county commissioners should adopt a constructive attitude about the request. It’s an opportunity to make Las Vegas an even more attractive destination for conventiongoers and tourists, boost the economy and improve traffic flow — all for a relatively modest annual investment of public funding.

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