Before one gets to logistical matters, the biggest single obstacle might be tourists' attachment to cruising the Las Vegas Strip in their cars – even if it's more of a crawl than a cruise even at the best of times. It's a time-honored ritual, even more so since the Strip was designated a scenic highway. So there's that. Politicians would have to buck a lot of public sentiment to ban cars from the Strip.
However, a subsurface light-rail system along the Strip was among the recommendations to emerge from a study commissioned by the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, two years in the making. While the cost was estimated to run anywhere from $2.1 billion to $12.5 billion (it would be much cheaper if built at grade), a $1 billion light-rail system in Phoenix had generated $7 billion in economic impact, rather than the anticipated $3 billion. But it’s a long-term project that could take up to 20 years to accomplish.
Another logistical hurdle is that casinos have nixed the idea of any mass-transit project that cuts off vehicular or pedestrian access to the Strip during construction. Hence the notion of submarining the rail line. (The forlorn Las Vegas Monorail would be extended to Mandalay Bay and acquire a Sands Expo Center stop as part of the larger master plan.) The line, as proposed, would start at Sahara Avenue and run south to Hacienda Avenue. The prospect of light rail running underground or in a dedicated, above-ground lane of Las Vegas Boulevard into downtown, possibly to an expanded Bonneville Transit Center, was also mooted as part of the study.
Above-ground lines along Harmon Avenue to McCarran International Airport, and to McCarran via Tropicana Avenue and Hacienda, would presumably branch off from the main, Strip arterial. Light rail or streetcars were envisioned running along Flamingo Road and Charleston Boulevard, facilitating traffic to the Strip. Also proposed was a streetcar line connecting downtown to McCarran along Maryland Parkway. One of the major backers of this master plan is Las Vegas Convention Visitors Authority CEO Rossi Ralenkotter, who said, "We are truly an international city. We need to act like it. International travelers are used to landing at an airport and taking rail to where they want to go."
The taxicab industry’s reaction to Ralenkotter’s remark is unrecorded, although it could be presumed that cabbies would be supportive of anything that reduced car traffic on the Strip, enabling them to get from fare to fare faster. The RTC threw a sop to the taxi industry when it also called for expanded staging areas for taxis at both McCarran and at Strip casinos, as part of the near-term package of solutions within the master plan. The mobile billboards that make up the bulk of commercial traffic on the Strip would certainly welcome anything that reduced the number of cars with whom they have to share the road.
Ralenkotter’s position was supported by Rob Lang of Brookings Mountain West think tank, who said light rail would encourage development closer to downtown. He added that it would be attractive to millennials, who regard time spent driving as time lost from being on social media. Lang proposed getting around Nevadans’ resistance to new taxes by funding light rail with the proceeds of sales of public land and/or re-channeling existing road monies into mass transit.
According to Wikipedia, "Prior to CAT bus service beginning operations in 1992, mass transit on the Strip was provided by a private transit company, Las Vegas Transit. The Strip route was their only profitable route and supported the whole bus system." So there's a precedent for a financially viable mass-transportation service on Las Vegas Boulevard, too, and that was with vehicular traffic operating in tandem.
Interestingly, one of the key pioneers of the Las Vegas Monorail, Robert Broadbent, proposed installing the service on Las Vegas Boulevard, but came up against staunch opposition from the casinos. To quote a 2011 article by business columnist Richard Velotta in Vegas Inc. magazine, "Broadbent ran into roadblock after roadblock in his quest to build the system down the median of the Strip. He told me before his death in 2003 that his efforts to build on the Strip were torpedoed by resort power brokers who viewed the system as a means to leave their properties instead of get to them.
"They also held the mind-set that the large concrete guideways would be a distraction to sightlines on the Strip. In short, they said the monorail would be a heap of ugly in front of their beautiful buildings."
And on the downside, light rail lines are permanent and can’t be rerouted, as buses can. However, it’s doubtful that a line running the length of the Strip would need to be rerouted, as the Strip is such an institution in global culture. Also, a light rail line downtown would probably take out the Reed Whipple Cultural Center, although that may not be a great loss: The City of Las Vegas has been unable to find a use for it for several years.
