Last year during CES we queued up for 45 minutes in the rain to catch this stupid thing. This year I stayed at Wynn and took a taxi to the convention center and walked back. It was faster. The problem is that LV is spread out so much that you can walk 1/2 a mile to get to the monorail and walk another half when you get there. Again, each train has only 4 cars, not enough for peak times. This thing should have run from the airport in the first place. There should be conveyors taking people from the train to their hotels. If you 10 billion extra dollars, you could solve all of LV's problems. You make it go to the deteriorating downtown section too. Mass transit, while nice in theory is just not going to work in LV or many other places for that matter. To work, you need to have high population concentrations and many common destinations. That's why NYC's works better than anyone else's. NY's systems pays about 70 per cent of its operating costs. Forget about capital costs. There is not a system on the planet that is completely self-sufficient.
New systems that are fully automated might have the potential to break-even or turn a profit. However, when the government has the ability to interefere with pricing in exchange for granting of franchise rights, this becomes an impossiblity. Gov't price meddling and unionization helped kill NY's subways and led to a government takeover.
Therefore, mass transit becomes a societal cost. Therefore, the debate should boil down to whether the costs of the government providing this service, in its usual inefficient ineffective manner is worth the increase in taxes. But this debate never takes place. What you have is a group of union/construction outfits working their ways on the local elected officials. They lie and dissemble and push the project through. Then the inevitable bankruptcy occurs and the taxpayers get left holding a bag that they were destined to wind up holding anyway.
In NY, it is difficult to envision the City existing without mass transit. In Buffalo the light rail system destroyed the city's downtown. In DC, it is certainly vital and Uncle Sam picks up the price tag. In Europe, mass transit systems are just another socialist perk.
In Asia they are vital, but to my knowledge, money losers just the same.