Read where the two new pedestrian walkways are presently under construction. One will connect Barbary Coast with Ballys and the other will be connecting Caesars with Barbary Coast. Understand traffic is severely hampered at the corner of Flamingo and the Strip by the closing of some lanes.
They hope to have these projects finished by early 2000. Would be good if they completed both by NYE.

Many of you renting cars in LV normally try to avoid driving on the strip; however, you may now want to avoid this intersection completely.

Beth, Thanks for the good news. This is my least favorite intersection in LV. The Flamingo traffic going toward the Strip (coming from the east) is always terrible.

This is a very dangerous intersection for pedestrians.

Really looking forward to the completion of this project.

Beth & Gail: On our recent trip the construction on Flamingo still had all lanes open, so lane closures must be fairly recent. It was bad with all the lanes open, so now it must be a nightmare trying to make a turn onto LV Blvd. I agree that it is one of the worst intersections for both pedestrians and autos, and it will be a big improvement when the bridges are completed.

Beth, Gail, V,
I tell you what I noticed on our recent trip. People still crossing at the street, even though the bridge was up and functional. ie Bally's to Belagiao. That really screws up traffic, because now the left turn lane has to wait for the stupid tourists to clear out of there way (most times). Then they wonder about road rage?
lee-PA

Lee, I left that part out of my note - the stupid tourists <g>. They really make it dangerous for themselves walking against the walk light. However, I do blame the city also. Most walk lights go off when you get to the middle of the street.

It's not fair to the cars or the pedestrians. Maybe one of our politicians here (the senator?) could write the city a nice recommendation letter.

Remember the good old days when Darwin's theory worked like a charm?

I think there is another very big crosswalk problem trying to cross the strip between Caesars and Mirage. As if the automobile traffic wasn't bad enough, the addition of the Venetian has raised that problem to a new level. My predicition is that Mirage and Venetian will not take any blame for this and put the whole monkey on Caesars back...since the crosswalk is not on Venetian or Mirage property, even though that's the flow of most of the pedestrians.

There was periodic lane closures when I was driving in Vegas last month. Just one or two lanes at a time, while they build the vertical sections on each side of the street.

I guess all of these pedestrain crossings eliminate my idea for a monorail running down the middle of the strip.

JMT,
It might not necessarily eliminate the ideal of a monorail down the middle of the strip. LV is great at spending large sums of money, never finishing the project and then tearing it down. For example, the monorail from Excalibur to Luxor sometime ago. That was an on again, off again project until it was finally dismantled. Fred and I never even had the opportunity to try that one.<g>

They're not beyond putting all these crosswalks in place and then deciding in 5 years they were not such a good idea. Don't know as any of us would be very surprised.
Maybe they'll go back to tunnels, make the central areas of the strip a walking mall, and construct a monorail down the center.

Beth,

My understanding of that original monorail from Luxor to Excalibur is that the designers didn't take into account the Las Vegas heat and the thing wouldn't work when it got hot. They left it up during their pending law suit so the evidence would be there.

I think the biggest pedestrian problem now is at the drives going into and out of the Mirage. People keep crossing after the light has changed and the cabs seem to like playing chicken with them.

jm

In all our travels to LV, we've seen Darwins theory at work a few times. I remember one rather grusome one on West Sahara! Talk about a traffic nightmare!
Lee-PA

Don't think I would care to operate a motor vehicle on LV Blvd (when there are so many other ways to get up and down the Strip) Should be interesting to see the increased traffic generated by the Venetian, Bellagio, Paris, Aladdin, Mandalay Bay, etc. etc. affects LV Blvd. Wendell

Wendell, the Venetian has created gridlock. Mandalay Bay was much less of a problem than I anticipated. There was one road called Mandalay Blvd that seemed to be a big road running down the north side of MB. It was still a big road as it went over the hill. I'm not sure if goes anywhere, but it looks like it does.