The intersection of Casino Center Boulevard and Fremont is a madhouse late at night — with thousands of pedestrians crossing right under the Fremont Street canopy. It seems it’s only a matter of time before someone gets run over. Has there ever been talk of permanently shutting down this intersection to vehicular traffic?
“There are no plans to close Casino Center at Fremont Street to vehicular traffic at this time. The intersection is clearly marked with appropriate traffic signals and safety precautions,” says City of Las Vegas Public Information Officer Jace Radke.
The Fremont Street Experience declined to comment.
However, given the clotted traffic patterns at other Fremont Street Experience crossings, the city would only make matters worse by diverting traffic from Casino Center Boulevard (a popular location for music video and commercial shoots, by the way).
It has long-since placed pedestrian beacons and loud warning signals at the intersection, so there's little more that can be done short of paralyzing the heart of downtown.
If the infrastructure isn’t sufficient, there’s also considerable peer pressure not to jaywalk, as most people obey the traffic signals at the busy crossing. After all, it’s only common sense to keep an eye out for speed demons trying to beat the red light, though in our experience, most drivers are pretty cautious there, seeing the crowds of people on both sides of Casino Center waiting to step out onto the street.
Barring some catastrophic pedestrian incident or a cluster of medium-sized ones, it’s difficult to see any impetus for the City of Las Vegas to impede traffic at one of its busiest points.
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Michael Frankel
Sep-25-2018
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