Las Vegas Monorail won’t get funds for extension

Stephen Curran

Thursday, Jan. 27, 2005 | 10:59 a.m.

Citing mechanical failures that resulted in shutdowns and lower-than-expected ridership, the federal government will not provide public funding for a long-planned extension of the Las Vegas Monorail.

Valley transportation planners had hoped to use more than $320 million in Federal Transportation Administration funds to extend the monorail from the Sahara two miles to downtown Las Vegas as early as 2007.

Ingrid Reisman, a spokeswoman for the Regional Transportation Commission, said the Federal Transportation Administration, the Transportation Department agency that would have overseen the roughly $450 million monorail extension, contacted RTC leaders earlier this week with the bad news. The formal recommendation is not expected until the Transportation Department publishes a notice in the Federal Register next month.

"We haven't seen anything in writing, but there have been discussions about this fairly recently," Reisman said. "We were notified as a courtesy by our contacts (in the FTA) before it goes in the Federal Register."

Todd Walker, a spokesman for the monorail company, said the decision would not affect operations on the system's existing line.

Meanwhile the company has no immediate plans to expand the system in any direction -- such as another proposed extension to McCarran International Airport -- until long-term ridership trends can be established.

"The goal has always been to have the system up and running during a set period of time," he said. "We're cautiously moving forward with expanding the number of people who use the system. We're happy with where we're at and we want the system to grow."

The RTC, which can submit another request for funding next year for the 2007 federal budget, had publicly distanced itself from the monorail after a string of high-profile malfunctions pushed back the system's opening date more than six months. Monorail officials later shuttered the existing $650 million four-mile system for more than three months as engineers investigated how several 6-inch-wide washers fell from a moving train in September.

That closure came less than a day after the privately financed system reopened following its first closure, which began after a 60-pound wheel assembly fell Sept. 1. That closure lasted six days.

Reisman said the lengthy closures and the almost $9 million in lost farebox revenue made the system too financially unstable for the federal government.

"We've said all along, and the federal government has told us all along, that the initial phase has to provide for appropriate levels of ridership to support that (funding) model," she said. "We were told the current level of ridership doesn't support that model."

Before the closure, the monorail was operating 16 hours a day and shuttled an estimated 30,000 riders a day, about 55 percent of its initial ridership goals. Since its reopening Dec. 28, monorail officials estimate crowds from two large conventions have bumped that average to 37,000 riders a day.

If it had been eligible for federal money, the monorail would have run alongside portions of a proposed light rail that would carve its way from Henderson, along the west side of the Strip, finally ending in North Las Vegas.

The RTC in October said it would weigh a possible extension of existing bus service or its MAX service to shuttle people from the northernmost monorail platform to downtown, a move Reisman said is still on the table.

No likely alternatives had been pinpointed by Wednesday night, Reisman said.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said he wasn't surprised by the decision given the system's previous problems and that he had already begun reviewing cheaper alternatives.

"As far as I'm concerned, I wish the monorail well ... but we are not going to mourn it," Goodman said.

RTC General Manager Jacob Snow said this morning that the federal government's decision did not spell the end of the RTC's relationship with the monorail company but it did leave the immediate future of the monorail uncertain.

"We were disappointed," he said of the funding denial. "It's just a project we are going to have to give more time. ... It's not over, but it's not clear where we go from here."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.