Las Vegas seeks solutions to tourist traffic on Strip
LAS VEGAS (AP) — For a travel destination that offers helicopter tours and jaunts in rented luxury vehicles, getting from point A to point B in Las Vegas can nonetheless pose a challenge.
The Las Vegas Strip, a 4 mile, glittering corridor flanked by massive casino-resorts, can easily turn into a clog of cars, taxis and flocks of walking tourists depending on the day and convention in town that week.
[...] that's only after a person reaches the Strip from the airport where they may have already waited in lengthy lines for a taxi, lines that have become notorious during events like the annual Consumer Electronics Show that attracts 160,000 attendees familiar with mass-transit or hailing a lift with a ride-sharing company.
All are ideas born from a single group of transit officials, tourism leaders, taxi owners, hoteliers, some of whom had never spoken before until Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Rossi Ralenkotter convened them two years ago and set up the ground rules: no being selfish.
Another suggestion is connecting the monorail to Mandalay Bay and eventually extending it to a proposed high-speed rail station and eventually building a light-rail line, possibly underground, connected to the airport.
A car traveling 2 miles north from the Excalibur casino-hotel to the Venetian took 35 minutes and traveled an average of 3.5 miles per hour at 9:30 p.m. Saturday during Memorial Day weekend, according to the Regional Transportation Commission.