Brightline West should also be used to transform public transit service in Las Vegas

Riffing off of "Florida's Brightline passenger rail as an opportunity to rearticulate and extend transit service in cities like Orlando," that entry mentioned that Brightline is developing a similar railroad service between "Los Angeles" and Las Vegas, called Brightline West.

The Brightline West train will have stops in Victor Valley, Hesperia, Apple Valley and Rancho Cucamonga in California, and Las Vegas in Nevada.

It's 270 miles driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, a trip of 6 hours or more.  

Millions of people make the trip every year. so it's a lucrative market for transportation services, especially if they are convenient and cost effective.

Metrolink at Rancho Cucamonga Station.  Photo: Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.

While Los Angeles Union Station is awesome, it'd be a challenging engineering project to start Brightline service there, so Brightline is settling on starting its service at Rancho Cucamonga in San Bernardino County, LA's exurbs.   That's about 50 miles from Union Station.

It's served by the Metrolink commuter rail service, so to get there by train will require starting and ending on Metrolink--at least one transfer, and probably two, will be required.

Brightline will be building a dedicated train station at RC ("Rancho Cucamonga will get new train station for Vegas and Ontario airport transit projects," Inland Valley Daily Bulletin).

Brightline's portion of a trip to Las Vegas will be 218 miles, and touts that the trip will take 2 hours 15 minutes--half the time of driving.  

But that's the second leg of the trip.  There will be at least 1 hour 15 minutes on Metrolink to get to the Brightline train--that's from LA Union Station, which will take longer from other stations, and likely will require an additional transfer, so three legs to the trip. (Eg from Santa Ana, the trip would be almost 2 hours 30 minutes to RC.)  Driving to RC is another option, or to an intermediate Metrolink station.

Brightline aims to capture 30% of the 40 million trips by car or bus to Las Vegas from Greater Los Angeles.

The task of building may be slower than in Florida, because in California especially, they have to get agreements to use right of way (mostly along I-15), although they have been successful doing so. The Las Vegas station will be built on Las Vegas Boulevard on the Strip ("Brightline buys land for high-speed rail terminal," Las Vegas Review-Journal).

But they plan to start building the station later this year, and have it open next year so clearly they are moving fast ("Nevada senator backs grant for Brightline’s LV-LA train system," Las Vegas Review-Journal). But it is not scheduled to start service til 2027.

Four years isn't a lot of time to do big things in adding transit infrastructure and programs, but there is still an opportunity, using what I call the "transformational projects action plan" approach to transit planning, with the idea that new additions to service should be used to simultaneously drive other improvements across the transit system.

-- "Nishi Kyushu Shinkansen, Japan, as an example of Transformational Projects Action Planning | Planning and executing complementary improvements across the transit network + advances in transit marketing," 2022

-- "Revisiting the Purple Line (series) and a more complete program of complementary improvements to the transit network," 2019/2020, original multipart series published in 2017

-- "Using the Silver Line as the priming event, what would a transit network improvement program look like for NoVA?," 2017

-- "Crystal City Arlington as Amazon one-half of HQ2 | Part 3: Leveraging Amazon's entrance for complementary transit network improvements," 2018

-- "Crystal City Arlington as Amazon one-half of HQ2 | Part 4: Pie in the Sky transit improvements," 2018

-- "A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for a statewide passenger railroad program in Maryland," 2019

-- "A "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for the Metrorail Blue Line," 2020

-- "DC, Transformational Projects Action Planning, and the Baltimore-Washington Maglev project ," 2021

-- "Prince George's County's newly announced transit oriented development program for the Blue Line," 2022

Photo: RTCSN.  People lining up for The Deuce.

Transit in Las Vegas

Bus. RTC Southern Nevada is the public transit agency in the Las Vegas Valley.  Las Vegas has a bus-based transit system ("Las Vegas RTC: Where Image is Important," Mass Transit Magazine).

They have a couple of premier and premium services that are especially well positioned and marketed, one called The Deuce, serving the Las Vegas Strip with double deck buses, a 24 hour servicen with an all day fare, and a free Downtown Loop shuttle.  

The Deuce averages about 200,000 riders per day, which might be the highest use of any bus line in the US.

The SDX--the Strip and Downtown Express--provides similar services to The Deuce but a faster trip, because of limited stops. Likely it is used more by employees than visitors.

The SDX buses are articulated and "fancy."

RTC also runs a bikeshare program, manages certain intelligent transportation systems functions, and a number of game day sports related express bus services.

The Deuce is a robust service, connecting to the hotels on the Strip and Downtown, the Airport, and Convention Center, and the football stadium and hockey arena.

Monorail. The Las Vegas Monorail wasn't designed to be mass transit.  It was a private venture connecting two hotel-casinos about one mile apart starting in 1995.  In 2002, it was extended almost 3 miles, connecting to a number of other casinos.  

The system went into bankruptcy and now is run as a nonprofit.  It doesn't go north to Downtown or south to the Reid International Airport.  Costs to extend exceed the capacity of the organization. 

Extension is difficult because of how the line is situated, behind casinos on the east side of the Strip, and there can be long distances between stations and destinations especially between the west and east sides of the Strip.

Vegas Loop underground tunnel.  The crazy Elon Musk Boring Tunnel underground serving the convention center is an ersatz transit service.  A tunnel with buses would have a lot greater capacity.  Now vehicles carry three people and they plan for little shuttles that can carry 12 people.  There are plans to extend the system by many miles, but the capacity per hour is pretty low.

No passenger rail service. Train service between Salt Lake, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles was provided starting in the early 1900s by the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, a part of Union Pacific.  

Las Vegas' art deco train station was replaced by a modern boxy station for Amtrak, which was proximate to the Plaza Hotel and Casino.

When Amtrak took over passenger rail services from the railroads, the Desert Wind, originating in Chicago, provided service to Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles ("Rails remain, but Amtrak left Las Vegas with the Desert Wind," LVRJ).  Service was suspended in 1997.

Last Vegas Transit Network Complementary Improvements Program in association with the development of the Brightline West passenger rail service 

The blog entry "Branding's (NOT) all you need for transit" lays out a three point plan for strenghening transit systems.

The first element is an integrated public transportation system.  In Las Vegas it would mean bringing together the RTC, Las Vegas Monorail, and private services including taxi and shuttle services, Brightline West, the Nevada DOT, and probably the Airport and Convention Center in an overarching German style transportation association.  I don't know the landscape there.  Right now, if RTC and Brightline work together, that's huge.  And the taxi industry and drivers are a very strong lobby against public transportation.

The second element is treating transit as "a design product" and ensuring that each and every element within the system of providing transit and mobility services is designed to be effective, efficient, successful, powerful and connected.

The third element, tying it all together, is an integrated branding system.

The recommendations below reflect these points.

1.  Extend Deuce bus service to the Airport. (Now.)  Yes/No/Maybe.

The Deuce has suffered ridership losses ("Las Vegas Strip bus revenue drops, spurring possible route changes," LVRJ).  I would attribute this partly to the need to do constant marketing to tourists, and the rise of ride hailing services.  

But a possible factor is that it doesn't serve the Reid International Airport directly (other RTC services do, which connect to The Deuce).  

Extending the route to the Airport would create a more legible bus service, presenting transit to tourists as the glue of their trip--from the airport to hotel to casinos to Downtown to the Convention Center to sports facilities and back.

One model is how STM in Montreal brands their bus service from the Airport to Downtown as the 747.

An advantage The Deuce would have over the 747 is that it would be one seamless service connecting most major destinations within the city, starting with the Airport. 

As it is, The Deuce is potentially the best example of point to point bus service in the US.  People don't have to learn about other transit services, other routes (other than the Downtown Loop Shuttle), they could stick with The Deuce and meet most of their needs.

OTOH, people getting to and from the airport have luggage, and don't want to take what feels like a circuitous bus trip with many stops to get to their hotel.  And most of the hotels have airport transportation shuttles.

Plus, the taxi industry is very organized, unionized, and fights public transit service to the airport.  So maybe extending The Deuce/SDX to the airport doesn't make sense.  

Alternatively, it could be done with the Express route, the SDX, the Strip Downtown Express, which is an articulated bus, and likely focused on employees and residents as riders, since it is limited stop.

And co-marketing The Deuce and proposed "Airport Express."

Another option would be to work with the hotels that offer their own airport transportation shuttles to co-brand the vehicles with RTC/The Deuce, to reinforce the use of transit during the stay and that The Deuce is the best option.

2.  RTC should create a new marketing program for The Deuce in association with the launch of Brightline service/partner.  RTC/The Deuce should be a marketing partner with Brightline and vice versa.  The Deuce should be marketed in Southern California train stations where Brightline will stop, on trains, etc.  A good example would be how Brightline is already marketing its service in the Orlando's Airport.

Note that in South Florida, comparable to how SoCal's Metrolink works with local transit services, the QR code on a Brightline ticket provides a free trip on Miami-Dade's Metrorail and Metrobus ("‘Brightline+’ app to enable door-to-door trip ticketing," Trains Magazine).

Partnership should include integrating Brightline into the RTC app, and RTC into the Brightline app.

One of the most intriguing transit co-marketing examples I've seen is in Kyushu Prefecture in Japan, which last September launched a new Shinkansen service (Nishi Kyushu Shinkansen, Japan, as an example of Transformational Projects Action Planning | Planning and executing complementary improvements across the transit network + advances in transit marketing," 2022).  As part of it, they wrapped buses and taxis with ads promoting the new train service.  

3.  When the time comes, extend The Deuce to the Brightline West Station. 

Rendering of the Brightline West station in Las Vegas

Extending The Deuce to the Brightline West station is a no brainer.  Brightline has great first mile/last mile services in South Florida connecting people to the station before their trip and to their final destination after.  

Brightline has "taxis", electric shuttles, and other vehicles for moving people between origin point, stations, and their final destination.

But in Las Vegas, rather than develop their own services, at least for people staying in the main hotels, they should partner with RTC and the hotels, focused on The Deuce, and provide discounted access, inclusion within the Brightline and RTC apps, etc.  (Separately, Brightline could focus their own first/last mile services outside of The Deuce service area.)

Note that RTC could do this "now" by extending service to the Las Vegas Premium Outlets South, which is across the street from the future train station. But that's a step can wait til the opening of Brightline.  Unless, the Outlet Mall wants to subsidize an extension.

Likely the preferred alternative would be to have a different Deuce route that goes to Brightline/Las Vegas Premium Outlets, while the main service continues as is.

4.  Consider extending the Monorail to the Airport (and Allegiant Stadium).  The Deuce has 200,000 riders daily and provides more direct service to destinations.  But monorails are cool and it would be used more heavily if it served other important destinations.  

OTOH, its fundamental design flaw--located behind the casinos on the east side of the Strip, making direct service to the west side impossible, that people would still have to get to their hotel with luggage, and the fact that The Deuce is an incredibly successful and definitely cost effective point to point bus service already means that this is an expensive and unneeded option.  

(Not unlike how the new underground terminal at Grand Central Station serving the LIRR doesn't really save LIRR riders much time, because of the time required to get to the street surface.)

Plus better to spend the money on projects that have better return in ridership.

5.  Work with Utah to provide passenger train service from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City.  In keeping with the idea of transformational projects action planning and the Rio Grande Plan for Salt Lake City ("Transit as a formula for local economic success and improvements in regional quality of life: Salt Lake's Rio Grande Plan"), multi-state passenger rail should be promoted.  Frontrunner is a passenger rail service from Provo to Ogden, which should be the platform for extending train service elsewhere in Utah and to adjoining states.

The Mayors of Salt Lake and Boise have discussed extending train service between the cities ("Boise, Salt Lake City partnering to request rail service between cities," Boise Dev).  Similarly, there should be planning to extend Front Runner to Southern Utah, and to Las Vegas.  

The Union Pacific did provide service to various destinations in Southern Utah including Cedar City and St. George. Cedar City was staged as the jumping off point to the National Parks.

This could provide important connections serving tourist destinations--major National Parks--in the south as well as higher speed transit connections between Las Vegas and Salt Lake City (and ultimately to Boise and beyond).  This is shown by historical service once offered, in the Union Pacific timetable and system map pictured below.

Page 6, Table A, Chicago to Los Angeles serving Omaha and Salt Lake City, Union Pacific Railroad passenger train time tables publication, issued April 30, 1967

Back cover with map of the system, Union Pacific Railroad passenger train time tables publication, issued April 30, 1967

6.  Ideally, Salt Lake to Las Vegas train service could be routed to the Brightline station on the Strip.  I don't know if there is enough capacity.  Obviously, because we don't have multi-state railroad planning in a coordinated fashion ("Two train/regional transit ideas: Part 1 | Amtrak should acquire Greyhound"), it's not like such questions are being asked.   

Site view of the proposed Brightline West Las Vegas station.

7.  Frontrunner-Brightline co-marketing/cooperation.  Like how it is recommended above that RTC and Brightline have a marketing partnership, the same goes for Brightline and Frontrunner, if train service were to be extended from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas. And as recommended above wrt RTC,  Brightline and Frontrunner should develop a co-branded Salt Lake to Los Angeles train trip in their respective apps.

A mural promoting Amtrak service in Las Vegas remains extant at the Union Plaza hotel.  Flickr photo by Martin Manning.

8.  Train tourism as part of the Las Vegas experience.  Working with railway museums in Nevada, perhaps some train tourism options could be built into Las Vegas from the Brightline West station, although it might be counter to the image of Las Vegas as modern and futurist.  

One such line could go from Las Vegas to Hoover Dam.  (Although historically, such service was provided by bus.) The Nevada State Railroad Museum is based in nearby Boulder City.

This piece is about DC, but extendable, "Two train/regional transit ideas: Part 2 | Running tourist trains from Union Station."