Monorail named in tribute to Broadbent

Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2003 | 9:35 a.m.

The Las Vegas Monorail will now be known as the Robert N. Broadbent-Las Vegas Monorail.

The board of directors for the private Las Vegas Monorail Co. renamed the monorail Tuesday, three days after Broadbent died at Boulder City Hospital.

Broadbent, a former Clark County Commissioner, Clark County aviation director and chairman of Transit Systems Management, worked for years to make the privately financed mass transit system a reality.

The monorail from the MGM Grand to the Sahara hotel is expected to open in January. Some of the streamlined trains for the system are already on the tracks and undergoing testing.

Commissioner Bruce Woodbury, Broadbent's longtime friend and colleague in public service, requested the name change.

"Without Bob Broadbent, that monorail would not be a reality today," Woodbury said. "Bob Broadbent always saw further into the future than any of us and always had a way, through sheer determination and dedication, of making impossible dreams come true.

"This is the only privately funded transit system in the nation. Once again, Bob Broadbent led the way."

The board of the Las Vegas Monorail Co., which has contracted Transit Systems Management to operate the monorail, has asked the Clark County Commission, the Las Vegas City Council and the Regional Transportation Commission to adopt similar resolutions so planned future monorail extensions would also carry Broadbent's name.

"There could be no more fitting tribute than to name the monorail for Bob," said Pat Shalmy, a member of the monorail company's board and president of Nevada Power Co. Shalmy added that Broadbent had to overcome "a lot of nay-sayers" to win county commission and RTC support for the project.

"I think that's what made Bob all the more committed to getting it done. No one was going to tell him he couldn't."