Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2005 | 8:41 a.m.
If New Year's Eve was any indication, the Las Vegas Monorail appears ready to carry the crowds expected during this week's International Consumer Electronics Show.
The monorail system, which quietly reopened Dec. 24 after a three-month closure, shuttled an estimated 50,000 revelers Friday night and another 40,000 the following day, Todd Walker, a spokesman for the monorail company, said.
Ridership numbers were estimated at slightly smaller Sunday, as throngs of tourists crowded highways and McCarran International Airport to return home. The exact figures were not available Monday afternoon.
The system, which is normally open from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily, stayed open another hour on New Year's Eve to accommodate some of the roughly 220,000 people who descended on the Strip that night.
Walker would not estimate how many conventioneers monorail executives expect will ride the $650 million system during CES, which begins Thursday. The four-day show drew about 132,000 people last year. This year, the show is expected to bring in about 120,000 people.
"We anticipate having large numbers during CES," Walker said. "We anticipate moving tens of thousands of people."
A CES spokeswoman told the Sun last month that organizers had done little advance marketing of the privately financed system as an alternative to taxicabs in light of previous uncertainty surrounding the system's reopening.
At that time monorail executives were reluctant to publicly predict when the system would again carry paying passengers. A 6-inch-wide washer fell from a moving train Sept. 8 and prompted the closure as engineers from the monorail company, Bombardier Inc., the Canadian firm that built and operates the trains, inspected the system.
That closure came less than a day after the monorail reopened after a six-day closure that began after a 60-pound wheel assembly fell from another moving train.
The system has run trouble-free since it re-opened. Tourists appear to have returned to the system, prompting higher than expected numbers in opening days.
On Dec. 27 and 28 alone, an estimated 80,000 people boarded the monorail, Walker said. The company began charging for the service again on Dec. 29.
The company's board of directors at its meeting last month estimated between 29,000 and 42,000 riders would board the trains when it reopened, a number that mirrored early ridership totals.
In August, the system's only full month of operation, the monorail recorded 837,566 riders -- roughly 27,000 a day -- boarding the trains.
With an estimated 2,440 exhibitors planning to show on 1.5 million square feet at different venues and a planned appearance by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, CES has the potential of being one of the best-attended shows the city sees, planners said.
Last year the event had an estimated nongaming economic impact of $150 million.
CES will be the first of two high-profile conventions scheduled this month. The World of Concrete show is set for Jan. 17 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Attendance at that four-day convention is expected to exceed 75,000.
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