Welcome to Las Vegas Sign, August 19, 2019
The transportation network in the Las Vegas area serves dual purposes. Tourists use it to get between attractions, while residents use it to go about their daily routines, including arriving at work along the Strip and other attractions that are of interest to the many visitors to the city. For approximately 50 years, public transit in Las Vegas was provided by a private company, known for most of that time as Las Vegas Transit System (LVTS). At this time, Las Vegas was a fairly small city and LVTS’s Strip route was lucrative enough to effectively subsidize “residential routes” in other parts of the city. This situation allowed LVTS to turn a profit and avoid government takeover, whereas most other privately operated bus companies in the United States in the 1960s were failing financially and being reorganized as public agencies.
However, as the Las Vegas metropolitan area grew in size in the 1970s and early 1980s, LVTS was unable to provide the level of service required for the area without public subsidies. In 1978, a consultant report stated that 110 buses were needed to provide adequate service on its existing network; LVTS had a fleet of 26 buses at the time. Beginning in the 1980s, the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada began to apply for federal funding and contribute to the purchasing costs for new buses. Yet this arrangement was not viable in the long term for LVTS or the area it was meant to serve, as the revenue from the Strip service was not sufficient to subsidize system expansion, let alone the existing residential services. In 1990, the Las Vegas City Council rescinded the franchise agreement with LVTS in order to have more control over public transit service in the city. Later that year, voters passed a ballot question that led to the creation of Citizens Area Transit (CAT). In November 1992, CAT took over LVTS’s residential routes, but LVTS continued to operate its service along the Strip for about six more months, at which time the RTC bought out the service from LVTS and CAT began to operate it as well.
CAT restructured the routes and expanded service in to the neighboring communities of North Las Vegas, Henderson, Mesquite, and Laughlin. In 2004, CAT received ten Irisbus Civis BRT vehicles for its first BRT service, branded as MAX. In 2005, CAT received its first order of double decker buses for use on “The Duece”, the local service along the Strip. In 2007, CAT received an order of RTV Streetcar vehicles from the Wright Group. To date, Las Vegas is the only city in North America to operate these vehicles. Also in 2007, CAT was rebranded as RTC Transit. As of 2020, the RTC operates 41 routes, 12 of which operate 24 hours a day.
In addition, there are several monorail and people mover systems that operate along the Strip. The largest of these is the privately owned and operated Las Vegas Monorail. It operates on the east side of the Strip, serving seven stations along its nearly four mile long route. The monorail has not always met its ridership and farebox recovery projections, and its operator has declared bankruptcy twice since the system opened in 1995. There are proposals to extend the line north to Downtown Las Vegas or south to Mandalay Bay or McCarran International Airport, but there are no immediate plans to build any of these extensions. There are also two free people mover systems between certain resorts. The Aria Express connects the Bellagio and Park MGM with a stop at the Aria. The Mandalay Bay Tram connects the Excalibur, Luxor, and Mandalay Bay resorts.
RTC Transit has been operating the public transit system in Las Vegas since 1992. Until 2008, the system was known as Citizens Area Transit, at which time it was rebranded as RTC Transit. Since the dissolution of Long Island Bus, RTC Transit is the largest outsourced transit system in the United States, with operations being split between MV Transportation and Keolis (as of 2020). RTC Transit is also known for its use of double decker buses (especially for "The Deuce" service on the Strip), the only Wright StreetCar buses in the United States, and its comprehensive overnight bus service due to the 24 hour nature of the casino and hospitality industry.
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The Las Vegas Monorail is an automated monorail that runs parallel to the Las Vegas Strip. It was owned and operated by the Las Vegas Monorail Company, a not-for-profit corporation, from its founding until 2020. The monorail was constructed without using public money. The first segment opened in 1995, was closed in order to be extended in 2002, and reopened at its current length of nearly 4 miles in 2004. Extensions have been proposed to bring the line to Downtown Las Vegas, McCarran International Airport, and Mandalay Bay, but none of these extensions has been built nor is there a projected completion date. Due to impacts from the Covid-19 Pandemic, the Las Vegas Monorail Company declared bankruptcy and ownership of the monorail was transferred to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
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The Aria Express operates between the Bellagio, Aria, and Park MGM hotels. It opened on December 1, 2009, replacing a tram that had linked the Bellagio and Park MGM.
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The Mandalay Bay Tram connects the Excalibur Hotel, Luxor Hotel, and Mandalay Bay Resort. There are two separate tracks, one of which only serves the end stations while the other serves all the stations. The Mandalay Bay Tram has been in operation since April 9, 1999.
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