After a private debut Wednesday, the world's first fully automated monorail mass transit system opened to the public Thursday morning. The 4.4-mile system runs between Sahara and Tropicana avenues on a route east of the Strip.
Sadly, Leonard Nimoy was nowhere to be found.
A "private-funded" monorail with stops a few hotels on the strip with the utopian promise of it eventually extending to downtown. To get there it will have to go through the most blighted section of Las Vegas.
All hail modern drunk tourist transport!
P.S. Forgot to mention that they are "fully computer operated" -- no human driver/conductor.
Open the pod bay doors, Hal.
Jonathan from MangledCat also weighs in on light rail:
As you know, then Gov. Ventura actually came to our fair city a few years back (2001 I think) to investigate a light rail system. The Denver RTD has one which just surpassed it's tenth birthday and is currently expanding it throughout the metro area. Personally, I'm neutral on the subject. I've ridden it a few times and find it a nice ride, but the damn thing is empty half the time. I can't for the life of me figure out how (if) it makes money, then again, being at taxpayer expense, that's a moot point. It will be funded for life.
What I find interesting is its accident rate, especially in heavily congested downtown areas. You know, those areas where this "thing" is supposed to do the most good. The proof is here:
A decade of accident data for the 18.1-mile system examined by the Rocky Mountain News show that nearly all of Denver's light-rail collisions - more than 97 percent - happened in the short but congested 2.4-mile downtown segment, from the foot of the Colfax Viaduct to Five Points.
The one most-hazardous spot on the system is within that segment, at northbound Speer Boulevard outside the Colorado Convention Center.
In all, light rail has had 318 collisions with autos and pedestrians through May 31. Yet, no train operator has ever been found at fault. In each case, motorists or pedestrians disobeyed or ignored warnings, police concluded.
Anyway, there is much more there to read, so please do so. The piece ends with these statistics:
- 54 million-Number of light-rail riders through May of this year.
- 1.6 million-Total miles traveled in 2003 by light-rail trains.
- 181-Number of collisions involving southbound trains; northbound, 137.
- 80-Longest number of days between accidents, from Feb. 25 to May 15, 2003.
- 32 Number of accidents in the 4 Pm. hour, the highest for any hour of day.
- 24-Number of collisions with pedestrians, including five fatalities and two suicides.
- 3-Highest number of accidents in a single day: Sept. 21, 1994; Oct. 20, 1994; and Feb. 8, 2001.
- 2-Number of Denver police cars that have collided with light-rail trains.
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