Las Vegas Monorail Update

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Las Vegas Monorail Near Reopening After Shutdown
Wed Dec 22, 9:15 PM ET
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - The glitch-plagued Las Vegas Monorail, shut down since September, could reopen this week just in time for the city's biggest surge in tourism, a spokesman for the $650 million system said on Wednesday.
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The 3.9-mile monorail opened in July but was shut down on Sept. 8 after two incidents in which pieces fell off and it was deemed unsafe.
Experts with Bombardier Inc., the Canadian company that built the trains, determined that the drive shafts were improperly aligned.
Monorail spokesman Todd Walker said on Wednesday that weeks of testing of the system had proved successful and a final report would be with Clark County officials by Thursday morning.
That means the trains could be operating again by Christmas Eve, a boost for the city just as it anticipates its biggest visitor crush of the year, an official said.
The monorail runs north and south along a road to the east of the Las Vegas Strip and has stops behind major hotel-casinos as well as one at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
The closure has cost the monorail about $85,000 a day in lost fares.
Construction of the monorail was financed by the issue of state bonds on behalf of the privately held Las Vegas Monorail Co. It had been expected to be the nation's only public transportation system to make a profit.
The loss figure does not include refunds or contract extensions the system will have to give sponsors such as Nextel Communications Inc., who wrapped idled trains in ads.
The problems with the monorail have also thrown into jeopardy a $450 million expansion into downtown Las Vegas that was expected to be started next year and completed by 2008.
While the first part of the monorail was privately funded, the extension is expected to rely heavily on federal grants that were being held up until the first leg of the system was proven a success.
The monorail was funded entirely by the sale of bonds using the state's bond rating, with most of the debt insured.
Moody's Investor Service Inc. and Fitch Rating both put $455.8 million of the first-tier construction bonds on a watch list in recent months because of the shutdown.
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- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 3:42 PM