Las Vegas Monorail isn’t closing, counter to social media rumors

Greg Haas
·2 min read
2

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — The Las Vegas Monorail begs to differ.

As buzz built over the weekend about the aging transit system’s future, the @lvmonorail account said definitively on X (formerly Twitter): “The report that the Las Vegas Monorail is winding down operations is 100% inaccurate. The Monorail is operating very successfully and the LVCVA has no plans to cease operations.” That post was at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday.

The monorail is owned by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which bought it for $24 million in 2020. LVCVA CEO and President Steve Hill told 8 News Now at the time it was about efficiency.

“We feel like we have the opportunity to operate the system more efficiently, simply because of who we are. We have the ability to borrow money at a significantly lesser interest rate. We have office space, they are currently leasing office space,” Hill said.

But since then, the Las Vegas Loop — Elon Musk’s tunnel system that shuttles passengers in Tesla EVs — has established a foothold. Growing from an initial plan to carry convention-goers around the sprawling Las Vegas Convention Center, the Loop is on the verge of opening stations at Westgate Las Vegas and Wynn/Encore. It’s already running at Resorts World, and maps show an ambitious plan to establish stations from downtown to Reid International Airport.

Can the monorail compete?

It could cost $200 million to replace the aging trains, Hill said in 2020. He said he expects a different system to replace it as it breaks down in the coming years.

LVCVA bought the monorail out of bankruptcy. It wasn’t a moneymaker for decades after it was built in 1995 at a cost of $650 million. Operating “successfully” must fall under some definition not connected to profits. Resorts didn’t support plans in 2019 to extend the monorail to Mandalay Bay.

It’s occasionally in the news, whether it’s for programs offering free rides or reduced fares on New Year’s Eve or for helping to transport workers when the F1 Las Vegas Gran Prix is an obstacle.

So if the monorail isn’t “winding down operations” now, the writing is on the wall. The monorail only serves a 3.9-mile route from SAHARA Las Vegas to the MGM Grand — and the walk from the station isn’t always a short one.

The Las Vegas Loop intends to serve resorts on both sides of the Strip and other important destinations including Allegiant Stadium, the airport, UNLV, the medical district surrounding University Medical Center.

But it’s not without its own critics. A YouTube video blogger, Ray Delahanty, has chided the Las Vegas Loop on several fronts. Delahanty calls himself a transportation and management “plangineer.”

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