Monorail buses pulled for emergency service

Stephen Curran

Friday, July 30, 2004 | 9:26 a.m.

Saying the agency needed to have more spare buses at the ready this summer, the Regional Transportation Commission on Thursday decided to suspend bus service from downtown Las Vegas to newly constructed monorail stations, an RTC spokeswoman said.

The monorail connector route, which ran to the Sahara station at the corner of Sahara Avenue and Paradise Road, began July 15 as a convenience to downtown riders who wanted to travel to newer casinos on the Strip.

Service stopped abruptly Thursday afternoon, Ingrid Reisman, a spokeswoman for the RTC, said.

It was mainly considered a stop gap measure by the RTC, which offered the service at a reduced rate, Reisman said.

The move, which was recommended by transit operations staff during a meeting Thursday with RTC General Manager Jacob Snow, was part of an effort to keep buses ready in case existing vehicles overheat in extreme summer temperatures, she said.

"We have chosen to pull coaches wherever we can," Reisman said. "It (the monorail connector) was a convenience route."

Riders will still have the service that runs along the Strip, she said.

Reisman said she did not know exact ridership numbers for the route, but said routes with lower ridership are readjusted when spare coaches are needed.

"It (ridership) has not been extremely high because we notice a lot of people haven't been going through the casinos (to access the bus)," she said.

Monorail spokesman Todd Walker said he did not expect the change would adversely affect ridership on the $650 million project because early traffic flow shows most of the system's riders coming from hotels along its route.

Walker said the monorail company had not begun studying ridership numbers but that monorail officials would begin negotiating with the RTC when more buses were available.

"Our focus is on the ridership of the monorail and we'll work with them (the RTC) to make sure that system is a success," Walker said.