As you probably know, there are two marathons that weekend (Nov. 14-15), fundraisers for the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America. Saturday’s 5K run mostly traverses the off-street Rock In Rio festival site and the area behind Circus Circus, so only Industrial Road will be affected, closed from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. -- no great inconvenience.
However, Sunday’s big run (and its various offshoots) slices the Vegas area in half, all the way down to Sunset Road and as far north as the Smith Center for the Performing Arts. Street closings will be myriad.
To be technical for a moment, there will be three races – the 26-mile marathon proper, a 10K race, and a half-marathon. Worst of all -- from a traffic point of view -- they will be preceded by a Kid Rock concert. Roads start closing at 2:30 p.m., so our advice is to choose one side of the Strip and stick to it, although pedestrians are at an advantage, thanks to the seven footbridges that cross the Strip at intervals between Wynn Las Vegas to the north (at Spring Mountain Road), and the Excalibur, toward the south end (at Tropicana Avenue).
For getting up and down the Strip during the marathon, when 34,000 runners hit Las Vegas Boulevard, starting northward from Mandalay Bay, we recommend forsaking the sidewalks in favor of the Las Vegas Monorail on the east side (which can get you all the way from MGM Grand to SLS Las Vegas) or the three, MGM-owned trams on the west side: Mandalay Bay/Excalibur, Monte Carlo/Bellagio and Mirage/Treasure Island, although that still leaves a big hike to get past Caesars Palace.
Buses are not an attractive option, as they’ll be on detour routes which may not get you close to your destination. (Taking a Strip bus is a slow and frustrating experience under the best of circumstances.) Lyft is offering special Sunday discounts but, again, that necessitates navigating surface streets.
Motorists’ only hope for getting from one side of the Strip to the other is the Desert Inn Road underpass, normally an easy commute. However, a lot of people will probably have the same idea, so expect traffic to be heavy. If you’re driving, it’s best to avoid the Strip altogether and circumnavigate the valley using I-15 or the 215 Beltway. And if you’re thinking of getting off I-15 at Charleston Boulevard, Sahara Avenue, Tropicana Avenue, Spring Mountain Road, or Martin Luther King Boulevard, think again, as the ramps will be closed.
If you find yourself stuck on the "wrong" side of the Strip and can’t make it to the Desert Inn underpass, you’re in for a long wait. Police won’t start reopening the Strip until 7 p.m. and even then not the heart of it: Just the Sunset Road-north-to-Tropicana stretch. A similar reopening on the downtown end begins at Ogden Avenue at 10 p.m. and rolls down to Harmon Road (i.e., just past CityCenter), as the marathon finishes at The Mirage.
In sum, we recommend carefully planning your Sunday, with a mind to where and whether you really need to cross the marathon route and if so, when and where it’s most convenient to do it. The Las Vegas Review-Journal’s "Road Warrior," Richard Velotta, was surprisingly unequivocal and stern in his advice: "Unless you're wearing running shoes or support somebody who does, you probably won't want to be anywhere near the Las Vegas Strip on Sunday afternoon and evening."
Generally speaking, we’d say avoid the roads if possible and either get around on foot or via the Monorail. The Rock ‘N’ Roll marathon is one of those occasions when a $12 Monorail day pass definitely makes a good investment.
