Replies

I’m IN Las Vegas and I would directly benefit from a train which costs tens of billions of dollars which goes from a market of 2M people to one with 10M. But.....

Those trains are boondoggles from the getgo. We have a ‘monorail’ on The Strip which was partially paid for with Federal transportation dollars. Tourists don’t want to use it. It has lost money every year it has been in existence and there is no likelihood that it will stop being a financial drain any time soon.

But, just a little insight for those of you who have never wasted 4-6 hours of your life driving from Las Vegas to Los Angeles or vice versa... California loses millions of hours of lost productivity each year with its citizens sitting on the I-15 freeway waiting to get out of or into the LA area. Sunday afternoons and evenings drivers are adding hours to their commute back to LA because California won’t expand the freeways even though they have been offered the money to do the projects by the Nevada delegation.

It would actually SAVE California money if the maglev got built (as long as it wasn’t with their own money, that is). And, of course, it would infinitely benefit LV casinos. But it would also harm some other LV professionals because it would make an easier commute for many new transplants to go back to SoCal to see their doctors, accountants, etc. Trust me on this, I’ve had plenty of first hand experience with numerous clients. And it would actually add to the tourism base in SoCal since people in LV would have a place to go on a weekend trip like Disneyland which is much easier (”Vegas” isn’t exactly Disneyland to those people in Vegas who have kids. It’s a great place and all but it’s not Disneyland)

But there won’t be a maglev train between LA and LV because Harry ain’t gonna last that long. He has been talking up this train idea for about a decade at least. But there isn’t any money in the Federal budget in the last decade and there is even less chance of it now since it doesn’t really scream ‘vital necessity!!’

The strip monorail in Vegas doesn't work cause IT DOESN”T GO ANYWHERE! It runs from the MGM north to the Convention Center. The only people who use it are people who have or are going to shows at the Convention Center. It needs to be extended to the airport and to downtown. The problem is the mob controlled cab companies are fighting it cause they'll lose fares and the strip casino owners will not allow anything to be built that will help downtown and cut into their business.

20 years ago a German company was ready to build a maglev from LA to Vegas. I worked on it drilling holes every 500 feet down the middle of I-15 for geotech studies. The company's plan was to use these trains around the world with stops in downtowns to revitalize city centers. The Vegas stop would have been downtown. The strip casino owners said no way. All travel most come to the strip. The German company even tried to compromise and have a stop at the airport first then downtown. Not even that was ok with the casino owners who did not want anything going to the downtown casinos. The company walked away and we're still waiting for this pie in the sky train.

So now 20 years later the airlines are cutting flights, nobody can afford to drive here and 60% of their $500 a night rooms are sitting empty. Short sighted idiot casino owners.