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 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 a field,
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 (phone
1-800/826-9911, ) and Avis (phone 1-800/822-3131, ); Allstate (phone
1-800/634-6186, ) is an inexpensive local alternative. To search for the
best car rental rates online, visit or .
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 (phone 736-8444); Ace (phone 736-8383); or
Checker and Star (both phone 873-2227)
 Buses
CAT buses (phone 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.
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 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 (phone 596-2953).
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.
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
Trolleys
The oak-veneered streetcars of the Las Vegas Strip
Trolley (phone 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 a brief detour to the Las Vegas Hilton .
The
similar Downtown Trolley (phone 229-6024) circles between downtown
and the Stratosphere at thirty-minute intervals between 7am and 11pm
daily, for a flat fare of 50¢.
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