Las Vegas Convention Center Loop

Last updated

Las Vegas Convention Center Loop
Las Vegas Convention Center Loop.jpeg
Las Vegas Convention Center Loop
Overview
Other name(s)LVCC Loop; Vegas Loop
StatusOperating hours coincide with events at Convention Center [1]
Owner
Termini
Stations5
Website
Service
TypeDedicated taxi route
SystemUnderground car shuttle private roadway
Rolling stock70 Tesla Model 3 cars
History
OpenedJune 1, 2021;3 years ago (2021-06-01)
Technical
Line length1.7 miles (2.7 km)
CharacterTwin Tunnel
Electrification Tesla Supercharger [nb 1]
Operating speed35 mph (56 km/h)
LVCC Loop
BSicon KBHFa.svg
LVCC Loop South Station
BSicon LDER.svg
BSicon INT.svg
Transfer to Boingo Station, LV Monorail station
BSicon HST.svg
LVCC Loop Central Station
BSicon HST.svg
LVCC Loop West Station
BSicon HST.svg
LVCC Loop Riviera Station
BSicon KBHFe.svg
Resorts World Las Vegas

The Las Vegas Convention Center Loop (LVCC Loop) is a transportation system servicing the Las Vegas Convention Center. Operating since 2021, the system uses Tesla Model 3 cars to shuttle passengers between five stations. Initial construction by The Boring Company commenced in November 2019, [2] with intermittent tunnel drilling for future stations continuing through the early and mid-2020s. [3]

Contents

The Boring Company machine in 2019 The new TBM at The Boring Company (48108809063).jpg
The Boring Company machine in 2019
A Tesla Model 3 car, like the ones used in the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop 2019 Tesla Model 3 Performance AWD Front.jpg
A Tesla Model 3 car, like the ones used in the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop

History

The Boring Company won the contract in May 2019. The Boring Company's contract was for $48.7 million. [4] The Boring Company first tunnel was started on November 15, 2019, digging at about 49 feet (15 m) per day; the 4,475 feet (1,364 m) first leg tunnel was completed on February 14, 2020. [5] [6] The Boring Company's second tunnel was finished in May 2020. [7]

The Boring Company started testing the system with volunteers in May 2021. The test demonstrated the new transport system could move up to about 4,400 passengers per hour with an end-to-time of about two minutes. In July 2021 the peak passenger flow was recorded at 1,355 passengers per hour. [8] [9] [10]

In February 2024, [11] following investigation, the Boring Company was issued eight violations and fined $112,000. by OSHA, which the company is contesting. [12] Subsequently, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) has assumed an active safety monitoring role in the project. [13] That April, the Boring Company was named among the "Dirty Dozen" workplace safety offenders by the National Council of Occupational Safety and Health. [12]

System

The transportation system consists of twin tunnels in which Tesla cars are driven by employees to shuttle passengers to stops at the Las Vegas Convention Center complex and Las Vegas transportation connections. [14] The loop cost $53 million when it opened in June 2021 and is 40 feet (12 m) below ground. The two below-ground stations have escalators and elevators. The loop is 1.7 miles (2.7 km) in length and covers a 25-minute walking distance. The plan is for the cars to be autonomous vehicles in the future. [7]

Stations

Future Stops

There are additional phases planned; the completed phase there will have about 68 miles (109 km) of tunnels and 55 stops, including stops at Harry Reid International Airport, Allegiant Stadium, the Oakland A's future Las Vegas Stadium, Brightline West Las Vegas Station, UNLV, and downtown Las Vegas. [16] [17] [18] [19] The next planned expansion was for tunnels to the Encore and Westgate resorts. [15] [20]

The Boring Company tunnel boring machine, Prufrock-2, was drilling toward Encore on Las Vegas Boulevard, and had tunneled to Westgate on Paradise Road in 2023. [21] [22] In April 2024, the Boring Company announced the Westgate station would be opening soon. [23] Also in April 2024, it was reported that the next tunnel began construction, to connect the convention center to a station located at 3150 Paradise Road. [24] In May 2024, a Las Vegas Loop tunnel was drilled to Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, one of four such tunnels prepared for additional future Tesla transportation system stations. [3]

Connections

Boingo Station, Las Vegas Monorail station above East Desert Inn Road, a loop connection Las Vegas Monorail - Las Vegas Convention Center Station.jpg
Boingo Station, Las Vegas Monorail station above East Desert Inn Road, a loop connection

The Loop connects to the Las Vegas Monorail at the Boingo Station, LV Monorail station at the corner of Paradise Road and East Desert Inn Road at an Island above East Desert Inn Road. Buses that are near the Loop and Las Vegas Convention Center are the: RTC 108, [25] RTC 119 [26] and Las Vegas Deuce. [27] [28]

See also

Notes

  1. Battery cars roadway without track or line electrification.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ontario International Airport</span> International airport in Ontario, California, United States

Ontario International Airport is an international airport two miles east of downtown Ontario, in San Bernardino County, California, United States, about 38 mi (61 km) east of downtown Los Angeles and 18 mi (29 km) west of downtown San Bernardino. It is owned and operated under a joint-powers agreement with the city of Ontario and San Bernardino County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry Reid International Airport</span> Airport near Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

Harry Reid International Airport is an international airport serving the Las Vegas Valley, a metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Nevada. It is located five miles south of downtown Las Vegas in the unincorporated area of Paradise and covers 2,800 acres (11 km2) of land. Reid is owned by Clark County and operated by the county's department of aviation. The airport is named after the late U.S. congressman and senator from Nevada Harry Reid. It has four runways and two terminals with five gate areas (concourses) all connected with a people mover system. Reid is one of two airports in the United States with slot machines inside the terminals.

Las Vegas Sands Corp. is an American casino and resort company with corporate headquarters in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. It was founded by Sheldon G. Adelson and his partners out of the Sands Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. The Sands was demolished and redeveloped as The Venetian, opening in 1999. An adjacent resort, The Palazzo, opened in 2007. Both resorts were sold in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Las Vegas Monorail</span> Monorail in Clark County, Nevada, U.S.

The Las Vegas Monorail is a 3.9-mile (6.3 km) automated monorail mass transit system located adjacent to the Las Vegas Strip in Clark County, Nevada, United States. It connects several large casinos in the unincorporated communities of Paradise and Winchester, but does not enter the city of Las Vegas proper. Built at a cost of $650 million, it was privately owned and operated by the Las Vegas Monorail Company until their 2020 bankruptcy when it was sold to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, a local government agency. In 2022, total annual ridership was roughly 4.3 million, down from a pre-Great Recession peak of 7.9 million in 2007. The monorail is a registered not-for-profit corporation, allowed under Nevada law since the monorail provides a public service. The State of Nevada assisted in bond financing, but no public money was used in construction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RTC Transit</span> Bus network in Las Vegas

RTC Transit is the name of the public bus system in the Las Vegas metropolitan area of Clark County, Nevada. It is a subsidiary of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada. While it services most of Clark County with regularly scheduled routes, most of the service is in the immediate Las Vegas Valley; outlying places such as Mesquite and Laughlin provide transit services to their residents via the Southern Nevada Transit Coalition, which uses several vehicles acquired from RTC Transit. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 52,734,200, or about 158,300 per weekday as of the first quarter of 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Las Vegas Convention Center</span> Convention center in Nevada

The Las Vegas Convention Center is a convention center in Winchester, Nevada. It is owned and operated by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venetian Expo</span> Convention center in Nevada, United States

The Venetian Expo is a convention center located in Paradise, Nevada, near the Las Vegas Strip. It is part of the Venetian and Palazzo resort complex, owned by Vici Properties and operated by Apollo Global Management.

Brightline West is a privately run high-speed rail route, currently under construction, to link the Las Vegas Valley and Rancho Cucamonga in the Greater Los Angeles area through the California high desert. The line will connect with existing rail at Rancho Cucamonga station of Metrolink's San Bernardino Line, a commuter rail line in Southern California. The project is intended to provide an alternative to air and automobile travel between Southern California and Las Vegas, a popular leisure destination. In December 2023, the United States Department of Transportation awarded Brightline West a $3 billion grant as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Construction, initially expected to begin shortly after the grant was announced in 2023, began on April 22, 2024. Revenue service is planned to start in 2028.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ojos Locos Sports Cantina y Casino</span>

Ojos Locos Sports Cantina y Casino is a casino in North Las Vegas, Nevada. The property is owned and operated by Fifth Street Gaming. It includes an Ojos Locos sports bar and restaurant, as well as a 90-room hotel known as Hotel Jefe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mandalay Bay Tram</span> People mover on the Las Vegas Strip

The Mandalay Bay Tram is a 2,749-foot-long (838 m) people mover that opened on April 9, 1999 on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. It was constructed to connect three gaming hotels belonging to the MGM Mirage Group. The line carries passengers from the major Tropicana – Las Vegas Boulevard intersection, via the Excalibur Hotel and Casino and Luxor Hotel to the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino at the southern end.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastside Cannery</span> Hotel and casino in Nevada, United States

Eastside Cannery Casino and Hotel is a closed locals casino on the Boulder Strip in Sunrise Manor, Nevada, owned and operated by Boyd Gaming. The Eastside Cannery includes a 63,876 sq ft (5,934.3 m2) casino and 307 rooms in a 16-story tower. It was developed by Cannery Casino Resorts at a cost of $250 million. It is a sister property to the original Cannery Casino and Hotel, opened in North Las Vegas in 2003.

Transportation in the Las Vegas Valley including the Nevada cities of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson is a multi-faceted system. The street system is mostly laid out in a north–south/east–west system of roads. While most residents rely on cars, there is a network of bus routes reaching some areas of the county. The Las Vegas Valley, being the one of the largest tourist destinations in the world, has a mass transportation system which favors the Las Vegas Strip.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hyperloop</span> Proposed mode of passenger and freight transportation

Hyperloop is a proposed high-speed transportation system for both passengers and freight. The concept was documented by Elon Musk in a 2013 white paper, where the hyperloop was described as a transportation system using capsules supported by an air-bearing surface within a low-pressure tube. Hyperloop systems have three essential elements: tubes, pods, and terminals. The tube is a large, sealed low-pressure system. The pod is a coach at atmospheric pressure that experiences low air resistance or friction inside the tube using magnetic propulsion. The terminal handles pod arrivals and departures. The hyperloop, in the form proposed by Musk, differs from traditional vactrains by relying on residual air pressure inside the tube to provide lift from aerofoils and propulsion by fans; however, many subsequent variants using the name "hyperloop" have remained relatively close to the core principles of vactrains.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Resorts World Las Vegas</span> Casino resort in Las Vegas, Nevada

Resorts World Las Vegas is a resort and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Winchester, Nevada, United States. It is owned and operated by Genting Group as part of the Resorts World brand. It had been the site of the Stardust Resort and Casino until 2007. The Stardust was to be replaced by Echelon Place, a mixed-use project that was halted during the 2008 economic downturn. Genting bought the unfinished project in 2013, with plans to redevelop it as Resorts World Las Vegas, incorporating some of the Echelon buildings.

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aria Express</span> People mover in Las Vegas, Nevada

Aria Express is a 2,034-foot-long (620 m) people mover located on the Las Vegas Strip.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Boring Company</span> American infrastructure and tunneling company

The Boring Company (TBC) is an American infrastructure, tunnel construction services, and equipment company founded by Elon Musk. TBC was founded as a subsidiary of SpaceX in 2017, and was spun off as a separate corporation in 2018. TBC has completed one tunneling project that is open to the public, as well as multiple test tunnels.

The Chicago Express Loop was a proposed privately funded urban rail transit rapid transit system that will use underground high-speed rail to connect the Chicago Loop to O'Hare International Airport from Block 37. The line was to be constructed by Elon Musk's The Boring Company and use 16-passenger self-driving vehicles built on Tesla chassis. The proposed vehicles would move through tunnels at speeds as high as 150 miles per hour on a concrete track and complete the journey in 12 minutes, which is 3 to 4 times faster than existing alternatives such as the Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line. The proposed vehicles were referred to as skates and are based on the Tesla Model X. The vehicles would cover an 18-mile (29 km) track with eight guiding wheels, including four traditional grounded wheels and four additional side wheels. It was claimed the Boring Company would pay the costs for the construction of the system in exchange for the rights to the future transit fees as well as advertisement, branding and in-vehicle sales revenues. Chicago Express Loop is the official name of the plan. The vehicles will depart as often as every 30 seconds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virgin Hotels Las Vegas</span> Hotel and casino in Las Vegas

Virgin Hotels Las Vegas is a hotel and casino resort in Paradise, Nevada, east of the Las Vegas Strip. It previously operated as the Hard Rock Hotel from 1995 to 2020, before closing for renovations to be rebranded as Virgin Hotels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Circa Resort & Casino</span> Resort and casino in downtown Las Vegas

Circa Resort & Casino is a casino and hotel resort in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, on the Fremont Street Experience. The property was previously occupied by the Las Vegas Club hotel-casino, the Mermaids Casino, and the Glitter Gulch strip club. Circa is owned by brothers Derek and Greg Stevens, who also own other downtown casinos. They purchased the Las Vegas Club in 2015, followed by the acquisition of Mermaids and Glitter Gulch. The three businesses were demolished in 2017, and construction on Circa began in February 2019, with an opening initially scheduled for December 2020.

References

  1. "Vegas Loop". lvloop.com. The Boring Company. Retrieved July 5, 2024.
  2. Romero, Dennis (November 16, 2019). "In Las Vegas, Elon Musk's tunneling company digs in". NBC News. Retrieved November 16, 2019.
  3. 1 2 "Las Vegas Loop tunnel reaches Virgin Hotel near UNLV, company announces on X". 8NewsNow. Nexstar Media. Retrieved June 4, 2024.
  4. Bliss, Laura (May 29, 2019). "Elon Musk's $49 Million Las Vegas Loop Makes Perfect Sense — for Las Vegas". Bloomberg. Retrieved August 24, 2023.
  5. "Boring Company's Las Vegas Tunnel Excavation Has Finally Been Completed". interestingengineering.com. February 17, 2020. Archived from the original on February 21, 2020. Retrieved February 21, 2020.
  6. Velotta, Richard N. (February 14, 2020). "1st tunnel completed for Las Vegas Convention Center's people-mover". Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved August 24, 2023.
  7. 1 2 O'Kane, Sean (May 14, 2020). "Elon Musk's Boring Company finishes digging Las Vegas tunnels". The Verge. Archived from the original on May 21, 2020. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  8. Wang, Brian (May 29, 2021). "Vegas Boring Loop Surpasses 4400 Passengers Per Hour Target in Testing". NextBigFuture.com. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
  9. Velotta, Richard N. (June 8, 2021). "Boring Co.'s underground loop begins moving customers in Las Vegas". Las Vegas Review-Journal. Archived from the original on June 8, 2021. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  10. Harris, Mark (November 12, 2021). "Early data shows Elon Musk's Las Vegas Loop not yet up to speed". TechCrunch. Retrieved November 23, 2021.
  11. Lane, Tiffany (February 28, 2024). "Nevada OSHA finds multiple safety violations at Elon Musk's Boring Company tunnel worksite". news3lv.com. Sinclair. Retrieved June 13, 2024.
  12. 1 2 Gentry, Dana (April 30, 2024). "Musk's Boring Company makes list of 'Dirty Dozen' workplace safety offenders". Nevada Current. Retrieved June 13, 2024.
  13. Mathews, Jessica. "The CEO of the Las Vegas agency behind Boring Company's first tunnel system says his team will be "more involved" after safety incidents". fortune.com. Fortune. Retrieved June 13, 2024.
  14. Velotta, Richard N. (June 8, 2021). "Boring Co.'s underground loop begins moving customers in Las Vegas". Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  15. 1 2 Hargis, Mark (August 31, 2022). "Resorts World LOOP Station". Las Vegas Monorail.
  16. "Expanded Vegas Loop plans advance with commission approval". Las Vegas Sun . June 13, 2023.
  17. "Vegas Loop". The Boring Company. Retrieved April 22, 2024.
  18. "Vegas Loop expansion: County approves plan to build 69 underground stations". Interesting Engineering. May 5, 2023.
  19. "Elon Musk's The Boring Company seeks to double the size of its Vegas Loop". TechCrunch. March 21, 2023.
  20. "LVCC Loop | Passenger Station Map, Updates & More Info". www.lvcva.com.
  21. The Boring Company Vegas Loop construction making progress, by Maria Merano, August 31, 2023 teslarati.com
  22. Prufrock, boringcompany.com
  23. "Opening Soon".
  24. "Vegas Loop begins boring operations for station near UNLV". Las Vegas Review-Journal. April 15, 2024. Retrieved April 22, 2024.
  25. "Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada 108" (PDF).
  26. "Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada 119" (PDF).
  27. "Fares & Passes". Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada .
  28. "Buses on the Strip in Las Vegas (RTC, The Deuce and More) - OnTheStrip.com". December 29, 2021.

36°07′53″N115°09′10″W / 36.13131°N 115.1529°W / 36.13131; -115.1529