Las Vegas Monorail Aims to Become
New Attraction

/Reuters/ - LOS ANGELES, CA - Las Vegas took delivery on June 24th of the first train of a privately funded city monorail that aims to reduce congestion on the city's streets while providing a pay-out to investors and advertisers. If all goes to plan, elevated trains featuring exterior wraparound advertising and interior flat panel monitors for ad videos will run behind the Las Vegas Strip early next year.

Investors have bought $650 million of bonds to be repaid from rider revenue and advertisers are anteing up $1 million to sponsor each of nine trains, which are expected to carry 19.5 million passengers in 2004.

Las Vegas already has a few small monorails, and the new system is built on the basis of the biggest of them. But none has attempted to link a significant number of casinos or provide a solution to the city's congested traffic.

The new line, four miles long, will link casinos to the convention center. The nonprofit authority building the line, using state-issued bonds, plans to extend the system downtown by 2008, which would let commuters join gamblers on the trains.

Advertisers hope to bring glitz to public transport.

"There is gridlock on the Vegas strip," said Rodney Sacks, chairman and chief executive of Hansen's Beverage Co. "We're going to make this really fun," he said.

Hansen's is painting the first train black and green to resemble a can of its Monster energy drink. It will play clips from extreme sports events it sponsors on the train's video monitors.

About 35 million conventioneers and tourists visit Las Vegas each year, most crowding onto the Strip, where a Roman Forum shopping mall and a small Eiffel Tower vie for attention with fake volcanoes and real galleries of fine art.

The four-car trains will cost $3 per ride and run every four minutes between seven stations behind casinos, from the MGM Grand to the convention center, and then to the Sahara Hotel & Casino.

If ridership does not hit projected levels, advertisers may get off early -- as soon as a year into the ride.

Motorola Inc.'s Iden wireless phone division has signed on to advertise on one train. But Peter Aloumanis, general manager of the unit's U.S. division, said he was concerned about plans to wait a decade or more to extend the monorail to the airport.

"If it is a decade off, I'm gong to revisit this whole proposal," he said in an interview. "Creating a connection to the airport to me seals the whole ridership number."

Daniel Barber, a California State University professor and member of the Mettrans transportation research center, said the project has a good chance of success because it has a captive, well-heeled audience -- and traffic
jams outside.

"It has a chance because the stops are in all the right places," he said.