Las Vegas is Motordom Triumphant. The city and county have practically from their birth, and certainly in their growth, assumed the dominance of the motor vehicle.
Here’s the first shot I took after arriving on the Strip:
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For most visitors, renting a car is practically compulsory. But the region is not without transit. Indeed, the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada has tried to provide a targeted transit service to appeal to visitors navigating the Strip – the cleverly named double-decker Deuce
(right) and the express SDX – with sparkling buses and affordable extended fares.
But the design of and the space for the regular-service bus stops tell you everything you need to know about how transit is seen in this society: a service for the service workers, or for the poor, the disabled, the young and the old unable to drive. (We did try the regular service on our first night to get Downtown, and were disappointed when the express simply didn’t show up.)
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Regardless of the quality or frequency of the bus, it’s just another vehicle caught in the traffic: transit has no separate lanes, no priority signals, or few pull-outs or stops with real-time information.
The view from the bus driver’s seat:
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There is a privately-funded monorail on the east side of the Strip, typically a half-kilometre or more from the boulevard, at the back of the casinos, if you can find a station. We didn’t bother.
The monorail has had an unhappy operating experience, and, at one point in its bankruptcy, did more to discredit this kind of transit than encourage more of it.
There are also a couple of small private monorails connecting casinos owned by the same company. No longer than a kilometre, they are at least integrated into the complexes and free to use.
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The absence of a dedicated right-of-way for serious high-capacity transit in the place where it is more critically needed – on the Strip itself – indicates that the problem is going to have to get significantly worse, with all other options eliminated, before the inevitable is considered: a balanced transportation system, where the vehicle is just one choice in a menu of practical alternatives.
It would actually be easy and popular to dedicate a lane to a Bus Rapid Transit. I wonder why they do not experiment?
The transit system does have dedicated bus lanes in a few locations downtown that run along the center lane, they are painted red/gold color. Several routes use these lanes when they are in area. If you look on the websites homepage, you can see an example. For example the Strip & Downtown Express, uses it at the Premium Outlet Mall North location.
I agree with Chris B.. Interestingly, some of the busses have bicycle racks inside the busses. Never seen them used, but not many people cycling in LV, as it is one of them ore dangerous places to ride a bike.