Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

32,928 PASSENGERS PER DAY: LV Monorail has best month ever

System carries 1 million riders for second time, but projections still not being reached

More people rode the Las Vegas Monorail in July than in any other month in the rapid transit line's brief history, though turnstile counts continued to elude original projections, according to ridership data released this week.

The monorail carried 1,020,796 people last month, for an average of 32,928 riders daily. It's only the second time the monorail has carried more than 1 million riders in a month since its July 15, 2004, opening. But it's still short of the 50,000 daily riders once forecast.

The only other million-rider month was was in March, when the rail line carried 1,002,622 riders, for a daily average of 32,342.

"What it tells us is what we thought: When the system is up and gets stable, people will rely on it. When people rely on it, they'll ride it. It's that simple," Curtis Myles, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Monorail Co., said Monday.

In 2005, the $650 million system has suffered major breakdowns or was shut down on only three of 219 days through Sunday, compared to 113 of the last 162 days last year.

In the first six months of the year, the monorail averaged 27,877 riders per day. In June, the daily norm was 29,078.

July was also the monorail's second-best revenue month ever. Farebox receipts last month totaled $2,945,701, for a daily average of $95,022.

The monorail's best-ever revenue month is March, when the line took in $2,952,979, or an average of $95,257 per day.

Last month's revenue numbers, while headed in the right direction, are still well short of what is needed to cover the system's $139,000 in daily operating costs and debt service.

"We are not hitting the numbers we need today to meet all of our obligations," Myles said. "We think we'll probably get to that point later this year or early next year."

Helping to close the gap between farebox revenues and expenses is advertising revenue and train and station sponsorships, which a financial ratings firm estimated are now bringing in an additional $16,000 each day.

Monorail officials hope that future additional ad deals will lessen the need for additional riders to boost the privately-financed system to a break-even point.

Officials aren't sure where ridership will go from here, though they expect it to go up.

"It's hard to say. We haven't been open for an entire year" without extended shutdowns, Myles said. "The system was up in July (of 2004), then down in September, then down until Dec. 24. We really can't tell what our month-to-month ridership should look like, until we get a full year under our belt.

"I'd expect convention business will pick up later this month and later this fall. It'll drop off in late November," Myles said. "Hopefully, down is down from a pretty high number. I think you'll see daily ridership creep up past that 31, 32 (thousand) to that 35, 36 range."

Myles hopes ridership will eventually range over 40,000 a day and approach the 50,000 mark. That would give the monorail a solid enough revenue base to start considering an extension.

"Hopefully, next year at this time we'll be able to talk about expanding the monorail to the airport," Myles said.

Weaker-than-expected ridership to date led Moody's Investors Service to drop the monorail's underlying bond rating to "junk" status earlier this year.

Poor turnstile counts led monorail backers to shelve a plan to extend the line to downtown Las Vegas.

Last month, the monorail company consolidated its control over the line by hiring Myles to oversee day-to-day operations. Those duties had previously been handled by Transit Systems Management LLC, a private firm which had recently been taken over by the monorail company.