While many Las Vegas visitors like to stroll up and down the Strip taking in the neon extravaganza, a taxi trip along Las Vegas Boulevard can be a long, slow ride.

This week's opening of the new Las Vegas Monorail may change all that. The four-mile automated monorail, begun in August 2001, takes 14 minutes to go from The Sahara Hotel and Casino to the MGM Grand Las Vegas, stopping at eight resort hotels and the Las Vegas Convention Center. The company that built it is predicting 19 million passengers per year.

The stops are: the Sahara Station, Las Vegas Hilton Station, Las Vegas Convention Center, Harrah's/Imperial Palace Station, Flamingo/Caesars Palace Station, Bally's & Paris Station and MGM Grand Station. A number of other properties, including the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino, Treasure Island Hotel & Casino, Bellagio Hotel & Casino and New York-New York Hotel & Casino, are across Las Vegas Boulevard from these stations.

The monorail will run 6 a.m. to midnight until mid-September, when it will ramp up to its full 6 a.m.-to-2 a.m. schedule.

Future expansion plans include stops in Las Vegas' downtown area, McCarran Airport and the strip's west side. This page is protected by Copyright laws. Do Not Copy