BIKE: Re: Monorail opens in Vegas

[Mike Dahmus]

The first obviously difficult thing about the LV monorail is its cost - 
$3, initially for a one-way ride ($5.50 initially for a round-trip, 
$5.75 eventually). Cheapest option for locals appears to be the 10-ride 
pass ($20), which brings you down to $4/round-trip.

http://www.lvmonorail.com/ride_01_gettickets.php

As I stated a long time ago, you can charge these kinds of rates when a 
lot of your traffic is tourists whose alternative is cabs. You can't 
charge this kind of rate and expect to attract very many automobile 
drivers, though. (If this route was longer, it'd have a better shot - 
$2/trip is high for the distance this system covers).

So the claim that LV is going to be the new model for urban transit 
because it will generate a profit is not true - even if it does generate 
a profit, it's doing so at a rate schedule which is not feasible for 
other cities.

- MD