Monorail: to the Las Vegas Airport and Beyond!

Las Vegas—Las Vegas Monorail President and CEO Curtis Myles didn't show the typical gusto of someone unveiling a major new project when he told a room full of reporters June 22 that the light-rail train would extend to the airport by 2011. If anything, he expressed a combination of resolve and resignation.

With good reason. Along with an arsenal of reasons why the plan should become reality, Myles also alluded to some factors that could make it an uphill battle.

Show organizers and convention-goers alike have wondered, since the Monorail opened two years ago, why it didn't include the extra couple miles of track south that would connect it to McCarran Intl. Airport.

A little history helps shed light on the answer. The country's only privately owned and operated public transportation system, the Monorail grew from an idea hatched 13 years ago by the former owners of the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino and Bally's Las Vegas to connect their properties and the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Over the intervening years, ownership of those hotels changed, but the Monorail chugged forward, getting state approval and assembling a consortium of investors and transportation companies to make the plan a reality.

A delayed opening, technical problems and revenue shortfalls plagued the system's first year of operation in 2004–2005. New management (including Myles), installed a year ago, is working to turn things around, and — to its credit — most exhibition attendees who take the Monorail tell Tradeshow Week they find the system clean, efficient and easy to use, albeit a little expensive (the $5 fare for a single ride ticket that has only seven stops could go down with a new program to offer bulk discounts to show organizers).

Still, as Myles said, "To really have the system reach its true promise, it's going to have to extend to the airport."

Thus he unveiled a $600 million, five-year plan to extend the Monorail from its existing terminus near Koval Lane and Tropicana Avenue east on Harmon Avenue and south on Swenson Avenue to the airport, where it will stop at both the existing main terminal and a new terminal, expected to open by 2010.

Although financing is not in place, Myles said, the Monorail has completed preliminary engineering studies and plans.

Stakeholders, Myles said, "want us to do something and need us to justify the investment, so they're pushing us to move pretty quickly." In order to keep apace with plans to build the new airport terminal — making sure the Monorail stop is part of those plans — Myles' goal is to begin construction within the next three years.

He noted that 86 percent of visitors to Las Vegas fly in and that long waits for rides at the airport during citywide conventions can create inconvenience for travelers that is atypical of the experience most people expect in the city.

Myles doesn't appear worried about securing financing. Hotels, he said, have approached him, wanting to make it easier for their guests to get to their rooms.

"My standard response is, 'If you have a checkbook, we can sit down and talk,'" he said.

The Nevada Taxicab Authority does not oppose the plan, said spokesman Rob Stewart. "We don't have a pro or con position on it," Stewart said. "The current Monorail system has had very little impact on taxicab ridership. We know that coming from the airport is going to affect it a little, but we don't expect it to have that much of an impact."

However, some resistance could come from the west side of the Strip.

Without naming names, Myles pointed out that two major hotel companies own most of the big resorts on the Strip, and that they are distributed along an east-west axis. "If we only connect to the airport, we give a huge advantage to one of those two companies, and they both know it," he said.

He was referring, of course, to MGM Mirage and Harrah's Entertainment. Of MGM's 10 Strip hotels, nine are on the west side of the Strip, opposite the Monorail line. Only MGM Grand has a dedicated Monorail stop.

On the other hand, five of Harrah's seven Strip hotels are on the east side and have Monorail stops named for them: Bally's Las Vegas, Caesars Palace, Harrah's Las Vegas Casino & Hotel, Imperial Palace and Paris Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Hilton, also on the east side, has a joint marketing agreement with Harrah's.

Therefore, Myles said, the Monorail's extension plans will only work if they encompass the west side of the Strip. The idea, he said, is to eventually connect the Sprint-Las Vegas Convention Center stop to Wynn Las Vegas' Encore hotel (now under construction), then continue west across Las Vegas Boulevard to the Frontier and Stardust hotels.

From there, it could go south along the east side of the Strip and hook up with the MGM's own light-rail system.

"We've had a lot of discussions about how to integrate the system with what they're planning," said Myles.

MGM Mirage doesn't have any definite plans yet, according to Gordon Absher, the company's vice president of public affairs, who at the same time acknowledged that with properties like its Project CityCenter bringing a residential element to the Strip, transportation along the resort corridor will become increasingly important.

The company has two light-rail systems on the Strip: a functioning one that serves Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, the Luxor and Excalibur; and another, now defunct, built to travel between the Bellagio and Monte Carlo.

The last one was dismantled during the development of CityCenter, whose land it crossed, but "with the intention to have a people mover system at CityCenter," Absher said. "So, those two systems did exist, and the one that's currently not operating will be resurrected."

"Whether those would be extended or (there is) some sort of cooperative situation with the existing Monorail remains to be seen," he continued. "It's safe to say that MGM Mirage definitely sees the need and has met with Monorail officials and will continue to do so to consider the possibilities."

The Monorail's biggest challenge could be assembling the land and easements necessary to cross those few miles from MGM Grand to McCarran. The land — currently priced at about $25 million per acre — is a checkerboard of property owned by developers, investors and casino companies. MGM Mirage owns 832 acres on or adjacent to the Strip, some of it in the Monorail's planned path.

Still, Myles is determined. Noting the city's reputation for imploding anything that stands in the way of progress, he said, "It's all about entertainment."