Editorial: Thumbs down on thrill ride

Monday, May 13, 2002 | 8:44 a.m.

No amount of expert testimony, no amount of illustrations displayed on easels, no amount of file boxes crammed with research and no amount of arguments by lawyers can ever justify a noisy, unsightly, high-speed thrill ride disrupting a downtown Las Vegas neighborhood whose residents are working steadily to bring back its historic charm. It's too bad the Las Vegas Planning Commission, presented Thursday night with the testimony and illustrations and research and lawyers, could not have seen the issue with that kind of clarity. The commissioners deadlocked 2-2 with three abstentions, meaning the Las Vegas City Council will hear the issue on June 5 with no forceful recommendation from the Planning Commission that this obnoxious project be stopped in its tracks.

In the past the City Council has been cool to the project and receptive to the residents, an attitude we hope to see remain strong in the presence of pressure from the Stratosphere. The hotel's owner, Carl Icahn, has said plans for $100 million worth of improvements to his property are contingent upon the City Council's approval of this thrill ride, which would reach a top speed of 93 mph while zooming 510 feet down the hotel's exterior, over Las Vegas Boulevard and up a steel tower fronting Paradise Road.

The residents see the ride that would be within sight of their streets and homes as wholly antithetical to all that they have accomplished in returning their neighborhoods -- extending east of Las Vegas Boulevard to Maryland Parkway, between Sahara Avenue and Charleston Boulevard -- to the quiet charm they exuded in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. The renaissance has been going on for a dozen years now and will continue with proper city planning.

They made their point again on Thursday, taking as much time as the Stratosphere's lawyers -- two hours -- to state their opposition. They rejected the hotel's contention that the noise would be no louder than a bus and that traffic would be unaffected. The hotel says the ride is needed to compete with Strip properties and their dynamic attractions that lure tourists. But no attempt to lure tourists is worth driving our best citizens out of neighborhoods they've worked so hard to restore.