Las Vegas, Where Thousands of Taxis Still Aren’t Enough

Travel Blog  •  Jim Benning  •  01.09.06 | 11:18 PM ET

I just stopped off in Las Vegas for a couple of nights en route home from a snowboarding road trip to Park City, Utah, and I couldn’t have picked a worse time. The gigantic Consumer Electronics Show just ended, and the city has been jammed for days. The crowding got so bad that the Nevada Taxicab Authority, which had already added 300 additional cabs for the trade show, had to hold an emergency meeting to add 300 more. And I still saw long, snaking cab lines in front of many hotels. It’s ugly.

At some point, the strip area is going to become too big and crowded and cumbersome for its own good. The question is when.

Meanwhile, the casinos are continuing to experiment with ways to attract gamblers. At the Imperial Palace on the strip, where I’m writing from Betty’s Diner Cyber Cafe, celebrity look-alikes, from a faux Michael Jackson to Madonna, are dealing blackjack. I played for a while at Little Richard’s table. Losing to Little Richard was no more palatable than losing to any other dealer, and I consoled myself by listening to a faux Irish rock band play in the lounge at Barbary Coast.

Tags: North America, United States, Nevada, Las Vegas


3 Comments for Las Vegas, Where Thousands of Taxis Still Aren’t Enough

Martin 01.10.06 | 1:41 PM ET

Actually, Imperial Palace has had the celebrity impersonators for some time. And what likely didn’t help your struggles in getting a taxi was that the Adult Video News convention and awards ceremony is the same weekend as CES.

Ted "Mr. Las Vegas Shows" Newkirk 01.10.06 | 10:02 PM ET

Plans have been bantered about to run a monorail along The Strip behind the hotels on the west side and have it also connect to the convention center, airport, and eventually downtown.

But the problem is that the present monorail only meets projected ridership figure during peak times like CES and major holidays.

Double decker busses run on The Strip as often as every 6 minutes (except in the middle of the night when they run every 15 minutes). But for convention attendees who have bags of stuff, presentation materials, and the like, neither the monorial nor the bus are attractive options. While the monorail goes to the convention center, accessing it requires a long walk through a handful of hotels in the middle and south end of Las Vegas The Strip. And the bus line serving The Strip doesn’t go to the convetion center.

The Dealertainers at the Imperial Palace have been a big hit for a number of years now. However, Imperial Palace owner Harrah’s indicates that the hotels days may be numbered. The property is so valuable, it is worth more to implode the building and replace it with a modern, new hotel.

Jim 01.10.06 | 10:15 PM ET

Great point about the monorail, Ted. Accessing it is a bit inconvenient, and it doesn’t make enough stops.

As for the Imperial Palace’s future, that’s too bad. It’s a good budget option on the strip. But I’m not surprised. With each passing year, it looks and feels more and more dated.

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