Why Are The Installing Toll Booths on the Strip?

I was just told they are installing tollbooths on the Strip. What is going on? I am a local. I only go down there when friends or family come in and only to one casino. We'll now have to pay just to drive on the Strip?

Yes, we're sorry to report that, in the latest effort to suck more money out of visitors, Clark County has announced that it will be installing "toll plazas" on the Strip, though only at the intersections of Sahara heading south and Tropicana heading north, and at Harmon, Flamingo, and Spring Mountain/Sands heading east and west before they cross the Strip.

Apparently, county managers are taking a page from the playbooks of MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment, figuring that if people will pay for parking, they'll certainly pay to drive to get to and from their hotels. This is also an effort to reduce the number of cars on the Strip.

Of course, actual plazas would create a traffic nightmare, which is why we put the term in quotes above.

Instead, they'll be fully automated. The technology is familiar to anyone living in an urban area where tolls are handled primarily electronically via “passes,” such as Fastrack (California), EZPass (New York), SunPass (Florida), I-Pass (Illinois), Good To Go! (Washington), and others around the country. These work via electronic transponders and license-plate readers to eliminate the need for drivers to carry change or wait in long cash-payment lines at toll plazas.

The Clark County Public Works Department is currently setting up a website where you'll buy what's tentatively called "Strip Scrip." Prices we've seen start at $25 for a single entry-exit and go up to $2,000 for unlimited access annually (no doubt with Strip employees in mind). You'll upload your registration and license-plate number and pay for your pass, which will be read by the transponders.

If you don't pay, fines reportedly start at $100 per violation (one entry-exit) and rise exponentially for repeat offenders. Fortunately, they're capped at $10,000 per trip.

However, if you return to the Strip without having paid your fine, the policy stipulates that your car can be seized and you can be detained until you pay up. Of course, you can't be held indefinitely, so after serving up to, but no more than, two years in county lockup, your car will be sold in an asset-forfeiture auction and, having paid your debt to society, you'll be free to go. By bus.

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Comments

Rick Sanchez Mar-31-2023

Sign Me Up

Hell of a deal. Sign me up I'll buy season passes for the whole lot of Huntington employees.

That aside please don't give them any ideas.

VegasMatt26 Mar-31-2023

A good one

Look Up, WAYYY UP.....
Notice the date  April 1,2023  
:-P   :-P    :-P   :-P

Kevin Lewis Apr-01-2023

Remember when...

April 1, 2001: LVA told us that a blackjack would soon pay only 6-5
April 1, 2006: LVA told us that Vegas hotels would be charging resort fees
April 1, 2011: LVA told us we'd have to pay for parking
April 1, 2016L LVA told us that buffets were going away

Those wacky LVA types! Obviously, they're kidding about the toll plazas. Right?

RIGHT???

rokgpsman Apr-01-2023

Whatcha gonna do

I thought Strip casinos would install pay toilets before toll booths. But I don't have the savvy business knowledge of the Harrah's execs.

William Nye Apr-01-2023

good one

may it be April 1st?

Patrick Apr-01-2023

Yeah right

I know this is a joke, but don't give them any ideas!

Mark Maciejewski Apr-01-2023

April fools

April fools. This Hass to be a joke

joedee983 Apr-01-2023

not too far off

Anyone familiar with the London congestion charge?

Mike Apr-01-2023

Don't laugh. It's happening in New York City

"NYC Moving Ahead with Congestion Pricing Toll Plan. Congestion pricing, which could cost drivers up to $23 to cross through Midtown and below."

full_monte_carlo Apr-01-2023

Tolls

Got me, I was pissed! Reading it to my hubby I told him this is the last straw. May will be our last trip.

Shurk Apr-01-2023

Tolls

April Fools
Hoppy Apr-01-2023

Re: Patrick

D-I-T-T-O!!

Dan McGlasson Apr-01-2023

AND the requisite tip

I did some research on this and found that the automated booths will also have, for your convenience, the option to add a tip as you pass.  This innovative opportunity will soon for you to show your graciousness will soon be added to the TITO redeemers in the casinos, the parking toll stations in the garages, and all slot and video poker machines.  By encouraging tipping with all interactions in Las Vegas, the casinos may have found a way not to have any labor expenses for any of their employees.  Again, for your convenience, the tips will automatically be chosen from 20%, 30%, and the top option, "empty your wallet".  Such innovation!

Ray Apr-01-2023

Thank you

It's nice to be in wonder once a year. It took several sentences before I figured it out. Good job!!

Thomas Dikens Apr-01-2023

You got me!

My first thought was it was something to do with F-1.  Then I read it and forwarded it on in outrage!  Then my friend said look at the date........... you got me!  Nice one..... I do know in London they charge ten a day for a pass to drive in the city centre........ Anyway, well done and smiles. - Tom

O2bnVegas Apr-01-2023

Well done

Really good one.  Enough initial verbage to keep a reader going until...

I made it to mid 2nd paragraph, "people will pay to drive to and from their hotels" I asked myself, "What is today's date?  Can this be...?  Yes it sure is.

The rest was just so darn funny!  A day brightener.  Thanks.

Candy

Jon Anderson Apr-01-2023

toll way on strip

you got me lva...this idea seems so greedy and one-sided that it came off as legit...at least until i realized it was april 1st...

William Franklin Apr-01-2023

William

With all the ludicrous gouging of anything and everything you do in Las Vegas who wouldn't have believed that this would be true

kafka45 Apr-01-2023

almost

If it wasn't for the amounts of the the toll.... I'd have believed this easy.  Whew...   but way fun read.

AL Apr-01-2023

You got me; Manhattan?

I will confess that you totally got me on this one.  Deke has asked me for ideas for April Fools Day in the past, but he didn't mention it this year, so I wasn't thinking about it, and sure enough, I got taken. A little excuse: I have been heavily absorbed in taking care of something this winter/spring, so I'm not as sharp as usual. I think Deke planned on getting me this year, and he succeeded!  
Switching locales, several years ago a friend told me that vehicles entering Manhattan (at least from Brooklyn) had to pay $75, which I thought was outrageous and highly improper, but because of how expensive New York City was in so many ways, I believed it. Maybe someone can verify or dis-verify what he told me, and then make or nix the juxtaposition of that with creating tolls for the Strip.

Jeff Apr-01-2023

The best April Fool's QoD was 2017's

The all-time best April Fool's Day QoD was the one from 2017. Actually, it was one of the best all-time April Fool's Day hoaxes by anyone.

https://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/question/2017-04-01

It was the best, because its premise was credible, and its execution was flawless.

Q:
I just read an article in a European magazine that says that the Las Vegas Strip casinos plan to charge admission and later this year, they’ll implement a Monte Carlo-type fee where you pay a certain amount of money at the door. The article says $20. Can this possibly be true? 

A:
Unfortunately, yes, it is...

https://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/question/2017-04-01

Jeff Apr-01-2023

There really were pay toilets

rokgpsman commented above: "I thought Strip casinos would install pay toilets before toll booths."

In New York, pay toilets *were* briefly a thing about 30 years ago. I saw coin locks on toilet stall doors requiring a quarter to unlock them. They weren't commonplace, but they did exist.

They never caught on possibly because New Yorkers being New Yorkers evaded the toll by crawling  through the space between the floor and the door.

Tabbycat Apr-01-2023

Sucker!  (me)

Totally fell for this.

In the onetime Bargain City where you can pay $36 for the privilege of self parking for a minute, Strip Scrip doesn’t seem a stretch.  As author Walter Isaacson wrote, “Reality has an odd habit of catching up with satire.”

Tim Clark Apr-01-2023

concerned

Happy April 1.  But on the other hand, wait till you have to swipe your credit card to use the elevator to get to your room it's coming as that's not included in your resort fee.

CMU Apr-01-2023

More Gouging

I figured that it just makes sense, every other business in Vegas is gouging customers for whatever they can get.

Scott Miller Apr-01-2023

Scott Miller

I played along or got played. Not sure. North on Tropicana???

NeonGlo Apr-01-2023

I'm hopeless

I totally bought it to the last word. I feel about Vegas the way I feel about Disney parks; that loser leach of a lousy ex-boyfriend is beyond redemption...except when I really need a date. I also got taken in by a GasBuddy ad for their new Pump No. 5 fragrance, until I read the ad copy, "Top notes of that puddle on the ground at your feet. Bottom notes of cola, coffee, pepperoni. Recommended application, once or twice a week."

Diane Crosby Apr-04-2023

Apr. 1

Knew right away this was one of your annual pranks!

Question of the Day - 01 April 2023

Comments