Already weighing ways to lessen foot and car traffic along the Las Vegas Strip, while boosting transportation revenues, city officials are considering a light-rail transit system.
The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, which oversees public transportation in Las Vegas, derives about 34 percent of its transit revenues from the Las Vegas Strip, which remains underserved, as more visitors continue arriving each year.
The commission estimates fares from a light-rail system would pay for the cost of operating and maintaining it, plus some of the cost to build it, making it a good investment for the community.
Punctuating the need for a better transit system along the Strip, an Oregon woman in December killed one and injured dozens more after running her car up onto the sidewalk and running down pedestrians near the Planet Hollywood Casino.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) also identified a light-rail system as necessary to help move people arriving at McCarran International Airport to their hotels and the convention center. Visitors cited difficulty and cost in getting from the airport to their hotels, and then from their hotels to the convention center and other locations, as one of their top complaints when visiting Las Vegas.
The LVCVA wants to improve the city’s transportation infrastructure to make it easier and quicker for visitors to get to their hotels and move about the Strip and to other locations, while the convention center’s campus undergoes a $2.3 billion improvement through 2020.
Currently, taxis, limousines, and now ride-hailing services can pick up and drop off passengers at the airport, but that can be costly and slower, particularly when compared to the relative ease and cost of using light rail to get to the Las Vegas Strip and Fremont Street.
Once on the Strip, about 40,000 people each day use buses to go up and down the Las Vegas Strip, which accounts for about 23 percent of the Regional Transportation Commissions daily passenger haul. A light-rail system likely could carry more, and that means more revenue, but city officials must weigh proposals and consider funding measures, first.
