This article about a possible "zip-line" sight-seeing ride got me thinking about moving our prized visitors up and down the Las Vegas Strip in a more efficient, quick and truly fun way

So much so that I have just penned this Letter to the Editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

To The Editor;

I read with great interest about the zip-line ride planned for the Bootleg Canyon near Boulder City. The general concept just might solve our transportation problems on the Las Vegas Strip.

We are facing gridlock on The Strip, to the point that a serious proposal to rip out the beautiful landscaped median is on the table. The Deuce has been an amazing success. The monorail isn't, and probably never will be, as people don't want to hike to be back of a handful of hotels to ride.

How do we combine the view and Strip-front draw of The Deuce with the "we ride above the traffic" benefits of the monorail? An elevated "Sky Cable" type of tram lift down the middle of The Strip. The very same kind that moves people around theme parks, but done with very large tram cars on a much more serious level.

Cars with the capacity of a city bus could run pretty much every minute, towering high above the median in the center of The Strip, with "landing" (stopping) areas on platforms that connect to the second floor of many major resorts. Just as cable cars in San Francisco can ride the moving cable when needed, but brake and stop as needed, I'm sure the technology exists to let cable tram vehicles do the same.

The ride would be a true ride: Great leisurely views of the Las Vegas Strip from a taller perspective than The Deuce, but would also be public transportation with the ability to pass over traffic and actually move our visitors up and down The Strip in a timely fashion.

It could even start/end at the MGM Grand's monorail station, as I agree that the monorail should extend to the Thomas and Mack and on to the airport.

I'll let you know if it gets published, but what a no-brainer! A cable tram wouldn't disrupt the view up and down The Strip (minus a handful of cable towers, which would sit in the median every couple hundred feet), wouldn't wreck our beautiful landscaping that helps make the Las Vegas Strip such an enjoyable place to walk, and would move people much more efficiently than the bus and Las Vegas monorail combined!

Recent Las Vegas related blog posts by Ted Newkirk:

• Folies Bergere Continues To Be A Must-See: Old Vegas So Retro It Is New Again
• Toll Road From Los Angeles To Las Vegas
• Harrahs Getting Bought Out, Las Vegas Condo Hotels Good For Visitors?

Too many people think we are going to get an NBA team, and ready to build a new arena come hell or high water.

The article talks about the cost and effort, but also notes:

What the report didn't say in its cost analysis was how the arena was to be paid for, what its design would be or where it would be located. Those issues remain unresolved. At least 15 sites are still under consideration, and no financing plan has been broached for the project.

"We're not any closer to getting an NBA team because of this. That's a totally separate issue," said Las Vegas Events president Pat Christenson, chairman of the task force. "This is all about whether we need an arena."

Let's get real here. The NBA is bringing the NBA All Star Game here to Las Vegas in February of 2007 as a publicity stunt. The game is fun to watch, but isn't a huge boost for the host city. Unlike the Superbowl, cities don't fight over the NBA All Star Game. Even the NFL's version (Pro Bowl) is held in Hawaii each year. A vacation for the players, and in a vacation spot that otherwise would never see NFL action.

Hello Las Vegas civic leaders! We are a vacation spot that will never see real NBA action (an NBA team relocating to Las Vegas). Would the stand be filled each night (mostly with visitors from the visiting team's city? Absolutely! But that is a moot point. The NBA has repeatedly indicated they will never (and The Rock Means Ever) put an NBA team in a city where you can legally bet on National Basketball Association games.

We have three arenas (Thomas and Mack, MGM Grand Garden, and Mandalay Bay) all located almost within walking distance of each other. We have no problems getting the biggest events and concert tours in the world to visit. We don't need to toss $400 million at an arena for an NBA team that the league would never allow to grace our city.

Recent Las Vegas related blog posts by Ted Newkirk:

• Las Vegas Monorail Sinking Even Faster
• Don't Bring Your Kids To Las Vegas?
• "WaterWorld" Comes To Las Vegas... Will It Have More Luck?

Las Vegas is out of water, land is scarce and expensive (the government owns most of the land surrounding Las Vegas) and the locals are starting to call for curbing growth as evidenced by this recent letter in the paper:

Recent news stories have stated that we must have more pipelines to bring gasoline from California to provide for future growth. We're told that we must steal groundwater from rural Nevada to provide for future growth. The Regional Transportation Commission says we must have yet another money pit oops, transit line up the center of Las Vegas Boulevard to facilitate future growth.

The politicians, bureaucrats and developers who make millions from these projects are not getting the message: Those of us who live here now don't want any more damn growth -- and we're the ones who pay the bills.

So why does the growth continue? Everyone is terrified that halting construction will grind the Las Vegas economy to a halt. Construction workers make good money, buy homes, cars, food, and just about everything else you can get at the local min-mall. If we stop growth, this flow of cash into the economy stops.

But ... it won't really hurt. Why? Long before the huge growth of the past 10 years, Las Vegas did fine. And curbing growth will bring the same balance we had before. Yes ... curbing growth will drive construction workers away. They will put their homes up for sale, leave the community. And yes, the void of that cash flow will put a damper on some local businesses, which will cause more people to leave. Which will cause a glut of homes on the market, right?

No it won't. Curbing growth won't stop retirees and others who don't depend on a local economy (those who do jobs and work for companies where they can do the job from any city they can get an internet connection). People will still be moving to Las Vegas, and buying up the homes of those getting out.

If anything, this will be a nice purge of Las Vegas. Far too many people live here that don't really like (let alone love) our area, and are just here because of the money they can make. Flushing them out of town, and curbing growth until we can get a new supply of water may be the best thing that has happened in a long time. Sometimes, you need to step back and take a breath. Las Vegas is at that point.

Recent Las Vegas related blog posts by Ted Newkirk:

• Gambling By The Pool - Mobile Gaming Coming To Nevada
• New Rail Service From Southern California To Las Vegas?
• Northwest Arizona To Be The New Las Vegas Suberbia?

Local columnist Geoff Schumacher recently wrote a huge article about why he used to support the Las Vegas Monorail and no longer does:

The problems with the monorail prompt the question: Where to begin?

Start with the route. From the MGM Grand to Sahara hotel-casinos, the monorail takes a circuitous path to, essentially, nowhere. There aren't many reasons for someone at the MGM to go to the Sahara. And the number of people at the Sahara, hardly a megaresort, who want to head toward the MGM doesn't amount to enough to fill the seats.

Of course, a more typical story might be that someone at, say, the Imperial Palace wants to go to the convention center. Fine. The problem is that the task is inconvenient. The monorail is not really anywhere near the Strip. Most of its stations are hidden back behind the resorts. Until you're a veteran monorail rider -- assuming there are any -- it's a bit of a job to figure out where the stations are.

The third strike is that several major resorts don't have monorail stations at all. The Wynn and Venetian, two of the Strip's largest and most popular resorts, aren't part of the monorail route. And obviously none of the resorts on the west side of the Strip is accessible to the monorail.

All this severely limits the number of tourists who see a value in the system. Even if they were prepared to shell out $5 apiece, they probably can't get where they want to go.

Later in the article, he notes how the Las Vegas Monorail is just now starting to do things like getting promotional material into the hands of the guests staying at properties connected to the monorail.

Also noted was the severe problem with the routing. Wynn Las Vegas wasn't built when the monorail was in planning stages, but The Venetian was firmly in place with 4027 hotel rooms. However, for a Venetian guest to board the monorail, they must walk over to the Imperial Palace, then all the way to the back of the Imperial Palace.

Does the future of the Las Vegas monorail look bright? Not hardly. Harrah's corporation is developing a master plan for their properties with the intent of letting people enjoy all of their properties as "one experience." One can imagine that Harrah's will make it easy for guests to get around their properties and not go out of their way to make it easy for guests to hitch a monorail ride to a competitor.

Other recent Las Vegas blog posts by Ted Newkirk:

• Downtown Poker Dome Should Be A Big Hit
• Las Vegas Is Out Of Water ... But We Keep Building