More Monorail Madness!

(Chicago Tribune, 12/24/04) When it opened in mid-July, this city's sleek $650 million monorail was supposed to be the envy of the nation, a high-tech public transit system paid for without taxpayer money that would be so popular it could even turn a profit. Then bits and pieces of the trains started falling off during a major convention season, and the thing had to be shut down Sept. 8 for major repairs. By Thanksgiving, newspaper cartoonists and tourists were dubbing it "monofail."

On Friday morning, the system will reopen with a 30-day conditional certificate of operation while Clark County officials address remaining concerns about the system's safety. Officials hope this Christmas will redeem one of Las Vegas' most humiliating and expensive debacles. The 106-day closing resulted in an estimated $9 million loss in fare revenues, officials said. "It's one of the most embarrassing things that's ever happened to this city," said Anthony Curtis, publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor tourist newsletter. "The inside joke among locals is that every time you drive under the monorail track, people say, `Look out!'"

On Sept. 1, for example, a 60-pound wheel assembly fell off a moving car, and a week later a 6-inch-wide washer came off another train. Nobody was hurt. Beyond that, the outcome could have a lasting impact on whether other jurisdictions around the nation work out the sort of deal Las Vegas has set up for this system.

"The eyes of the transportation world are really on Las Vegas to see if this can work," said Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), a monorail supporter on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. "So far, it's not looking so good. Isn't it always touted that private industry does it better than government bureaucracy? I don't believe that is necessarily so at all times, but let's hope it's so here."

Indeed, in many ways the Las Vegas Monorail deal is unique -- and that may account for its safety problems, some experts contend. The trains run on a 3.9-mile north-south route along a street east of the Las Vegas Strip with six stops at major hotel-casinos as well as one at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The system is operated by a private non-profit entity, Transportation Management Inc., Transit Systems Management, which reports to the Las Vegas Monorail Company, a board appointed by the governor. Still, it's largely a privately operated venture funded by construction bonds sold to investors with debt insurance so Nevada taxpayers aren't liable in a default.

Officials see profitable future Monorail officials project that 50,000 riders a day -- a reasonable prospect in a city that greeted a record 40 million visitors this year -- would make this the nation's only profitable major public transit system. The system averaged 28,000 riders a day in its first 48 days, a figure officials expect to rise once visitors discover it. By contrast, the Chicago Transit Authority recovers about 44 percent for its rail operations and 40 percent for its bus service, according to the American Public Transportation Association, an industry group.

Yet because the Las Vegas system used no taxpayer money, some fear corners may have been cut to open on time. "What I want to know is how the priorities were set, because they may have made decisions to prioritize some things over others that exacerbated the problems," said state Sen. Dina Titus of Las Vegas, the Democratic minority leader. "Was the priority giving high-profile members on the board big salaries instead of spending that money on design? Was it getting through in a hurry?"

Transportation Management spokesman Todd Walker insisted that federal standards were met by Bombardier Inc., the Montreal-based company that built and operates the trains. Walker noted that such efforts were made because federal and county funds will be used for expansions --including a $450 million, 2.3-mile stretch to the north planned to open in 2008 but now pushed back by the closing. The monorail also is slated to be extended south to McCarran International Airport by 2012, using taxpayer money. `We put out a lot of money'

Walker said that because the system is customized for Las Vegas, the troubles that emerged couldn't have been known until the system went into operation. Those problems are fixed and the system has been deemed safe by Bombardier, county engineers and an outside disaster-analysis firm, he said. Antsy hotel managers hope so.

"We put a lot of money out for this thing and we'd like to get some of it back in business," said Imperial Palace Hotel & Casino General Manager Ed Crispell, whose company invested millions on a connecting walkway to the monorail at the back of its property. "It has been a little embarrassing because a lot of conventions that were told that the monorail would be up and running found it wasn't so." Comment: Certainly no one should be surprised!

Posted: 12/29/04