Question of the Day March 24, 2011
Q:
With the impending closure of the Sahara what will happen to the Monorail station? The Sahara is the terminus of the run. Also what is happening with the idea of the monorail continuing to the airport or downtown?
A:
Nothing, according to Las Vegas Monorail Co. spokeswoman Ingrid Reisman. She told the Las Vegas Sun that the Sahara station can and will remain open. After all, it can be accessed from street level. Also, it is one of only two stops (the other is MGM Grand) where Vegas residents can buy discounted Monorail tickets. Since the train must "deadhead" to the Sahara in order to make its southward turnabout – and because the station is near a major surface street, unlike the Las Vegas Hilton (where the Monorail makes its next-to-last northbound stop), there’s little business sense in closing the Sahara station.
Next year, it will also be a connecting point for the in-progress Sahara Express Rapid Transit bus line that will traverse the valley from Boulder Highway to Hualapai Way, out on the western fringes. A merger of the Monorail with the Regional Transportation Commission’s bus system, in fact, has been discussed but was definitively rebuffed by the RTC earlier this month.
As for building the critical MGM-to-airport extension, which would swing east to the Thomas & Mack Arena before heading south to McCarran International Airport, if federal monies are still on the table when the Monorail emerges from restructuring, the rail line would need a Nevada governmental body to sponsor it. (Given the hundreds of millions of dollars in debt carried by the Monorail, Clark County has no stomach for buying it outright.) Talks have also been conducted with Chinese venture capitalists, trying to interest them in become bondholders – not owners – of the line, thereby providing the scratch necessary to build the McCarran leg. The Monorail-to-Downtown extension hasn’t been spoken of in several years and is generally considered defunct.
In any event, the Monorail can’t turn a new page in its history until it finishes Chapter 11.
