Troubles continue to mount for the Las Vegas Monorail – the city's privately owned 3.9-mile elevated tourist line connecting several casinos and the Las Vegas Convention Center in the famous Strip district.
On January 13th, the line's private operator, Las Vegas Monorail Company (LVMC), filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, with officials laying blame on the current economic crash, leading to a drop in ridership as fewer people have been visiting the tourist-oriented city. "The current economic downturn, including a 30 percent decline in convention traffic to Las Vegas, has increased the financial strain on the Monorail, like it has with every other tourism-dependent Las Vegas company" said President and Chief Executive Curtis Myles, quoted by the Las Vegas Sun (Jan. 13th). However, Myles assured the public that the line would continue to operate.
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The Las Vegas Monorail, like several other recent monorail proposals and projects, was portrayed as a much more feasible and desirable alternative to light rail transit (LRT) by a segment of that loose grouping of rail transit opponents sometimes wryly characterized (by LRT supporters) as the "Anything But Light Rail (ABLR)" amalgam. Among that sub-group, the Las Vegas Monorail was expected to become a model of the supremacy of monorail technology, both technologically and financially.
However, the monorail's major technical problems quickly dispelled the notion of technological superiority. And, over the past several years, the monorail's purported financial performance advantages have been steadily discredited by its deteriorating financial condition.