Driving and rental cars
If you're happy to see no more of Las
Vegas than the Strip and perhaps
downtown - and on a short visit,
there's no great reason to venture any
further - then it's perfectly possible
to survive without a
car . Bear
in mind, though, that even the Strip
is too long to explore comfortably on
foot; walking more than a couple of
blocks in summer is exhausting, so you
can expect to make heavy use of taxis,
shuttle buses, and the monorail links.
Ranging further afield, the
metropolitan area is very large, so
driving is the only practical way to
explore it in any detail, while all
the excursions to the vicinity of Las
Vegas require the use of your own
vehicle.
Las Vegas as a whole is plagued by
severe traffic problems, and
nowhere more so than the Strip. That
said, so long as you're not in a hurry
to get anywhere, driving along the
Strip is an exhilarating sensory
blast, and worth experiencing both by
day and by night. For trips on which
speed is your main priority, it's
usually worth using I-15 where
possible, even for short hops. The
fastest east-west route across town
tends to be Desert Inn Road ,
which passes under the Strip and over
I-15, with connections to neither.
All the Strip casinos except Bellagio
offer free parking to guests
and non-guests alike, usually in huge
garages around the back of the entire
complex. The snag is that the walk
from your car to wherever you actually
want to go - your hotel room, for
example - can be as much as a mile in
places like Caesars Palace or
the MGM Grand . If you're
spending a day touring the Strip, you
may prefer to go through the rigmarole
of parking once only, somewhere
central like Harrah's . Valet
parking , usually available at the
main casino entrance, can save a lot
of stress; it's nominally free,
although a tip of around $2 is all but
obligatory.
Typical car rental rates in
Las Vegas, including taxes, are $30
per day, $150 per week. All the major
chains have outlets at the airport,
and nearly every sizeable hotel is
affiliated with at least one car
rental outfit. Among the most
ubiquitous are Dollar (tel
1-800/826-9911, ) and Avis (tel
1-800/822-3131, ); Allstate (tel
1-800/634-6186, ) is an inexpensive
local alternative. Search for the best
car rental rates online.
Taxis
Every casino has a line of
taxis
waiting at its front entrance.
Standard fares are $2.20 for the first
mile and $1.50 for each additional
mile, but the meter continues to run
when you're caught in traffic. A $1.20
surcharge is added for trips to the
airport; we've listed sample fares for
the airport run.
Tip the driver
between fifteen and twenty percent.
If you need to call a cab, try ABC
(tel 736-8444); Ace (tel 736-8383); or
Checker and Star (both tel 873-2227)
Buses
CAT
buses (tel 228-7433, )
serve the entire city from their hub
at the
Downtown Transportation
Center (daily 6am-10pm), a couple
of blocks north of Fremont Street at
Stewart Avenue and Casino Center
Boulevard.
Two routes, #301 and the
express #302 , run the length
of the Strip and continue to downtown,
with services every ten minutes
between 5.30am and 12.30am, and every
fifteen minutes from 12.30am until
5.30am. The flat fare is $2. Services
in the rest of town operate between
5.30am and 1.30am only, for a flat
fare of $1.25. A monthly pass for all
CAT buses, sold at the Downtown
Transportation Center, costs $30.
Trolleys
The oak-veneered streetcars of the
Las
Vegas Strip Trolley (tel 382-1404)
ply the Strip daily between 9.30am and
2am, with a flat fare of $1.50 and
departures every fifteen minutes.
Their route extends from
Mandalay
Bay as far north as the
Stratosphere
, with stops at the front doors of the
major casinos, plus the Fashion Show
Mall and Wet'n'Wild, and a brief
detour to the
Las Vegas Hilton.
The similar Downtown Trolley
(tel 229-6024) circles between
downtown and the Stratosphere
at thirty-minute intervals between 7am
and 11pm daily, for a flat fare of 50ข.
Monorails
Several Strip properties are connected
by means of free
monorail
services. Such systems link
Excalibur
with
Mandalay Bay via
Luxor
; the
MGM Grand with
Bally's;
Bellagio with the
Monte Carlo
; and the
Mirage with
Treasure
Island.
There has long been talk of
constructing a single light-rail
system that would not only run the
length of the Strip but also extend as
far as downtown. All such plans were
traditionally stymied by the refusal
of the Desert Inn 's management
to allow it to pass over their
property, but now the project has
finally got the go-ahead. It's not,
however, due for completion until
2006, at which time it's envisaged
there will be two separate lines, one
from the MGM Grand to the Sahara
, and another from the Sahara
to downtown.
For the moment, however, the four
existing segments do not meet up.
Neither do they make much of a model
of public transit. Designed to serve
the needs of the casinos rather than
the visitors, most can only be reached
by walking through the whole of the
relevant casinos.
Casino shuttle services
Several casino operators run
free
shuttle services either to connect
different properties in the same
chain, or between outlying casinos and
the Strip. These include services
between the various members of the
Stations chain; between the
Barbary
Coast on the Strip and
Orleans
and the
Gold Coast (next to the
Rio ) to the west; and between
Sam's
Town and both the
Stardust
on the Strip and the
California
and
Fremont hotels downtown.
In addition, a $10 round-trip bus
service connects the MGM Grand
and New York-New York with the
town of Primm , forty miles
southwest on the California border,
which is home to a couple of large
casinos and the Fashion Outlet Las
Vegas mall; call 874-1400 for details.
Cycling
Cycling in Las Vegas proper is
not a good idea. Cops do it to beat
the traffic on the Strip, but for
visitors there's too much danger for
too little reward. Red Rock Canyon is
very popular with recreational
cyclists, however. If you want to join
them, either on an organized tour or
simply by renting a bike, go to Escape
The City Streets , 8221 W
Charleston Blvd (tel 596-2953, ).
