Las Vegas Monorail Construction, USA

Bombardier Transportation, through Bombardier Transit Corporation, has signed a contract with the Las Vegas Monorail Company to design and build a driverless, urban monorail transportation system east of the Las Vegas Boulevard in the heart of the resort corridor.

URBAN TRANSIT SYSTEM

In spite of Clark County's overwhelming need for improved mobility, as it stands today, there are no fixed guideways, automated monorails or light rail urban transit systems in the County, nor is there any tax money available to build one. The first leg of this urban transit system for Las Vegas is by far the most scrutinised project in the State's history, having withstood the State and County dissection in more than three years of public hearings and costly independent examinations. It was finally given the go ahead in September 2000.

The new Las Vegas Monorail will link seven stations over 6.4 km of elevated dual-monorail guideway, integrating the two existing stations and re-equipping the approximate 1.6 km guideway of the MGM-Grand Bally's former monorail line. The 36-car monorail fleet, to be operated in nine 4-car trains, will provide direct service to eight major resort properties and the Las Vegas convention centre.

BOMBARDIER TRANSPORTATION

Bombardier, as a member of a consortium, will be responsible for the electrical and mechanical systems of the fully automated monorail line, including 36 M-VI monorail cars. This contract is valued at $200 million. Bombardier will operate the system for an initial five years with an option for an additional ten years. The five-year operations and maintenance contract assigned to Bombardier carries a value of $56 million. The total capital cost of the project is valued at $354 million. The design, build, and equip contract calls for Bombardier and consortium partner Granite Construction Company to be responsible for the turnkey design, construction, and system-wide elements of the complete monorail system.

Granite's design-build contract calls for the design and construction of five new stations and approximately three miles of dual-elevated guideway, integrating two existing stations along the route. The new alignment will run east of the Las Vegas strip between the MGM Grand and the Sahara. The contract also calls for re-equipping approximately one-mile of existing guideway between the MGM and Ballys. The principal design engineer on the project is Carter & Burgess. The team also includes Gensler Associates, which will provide principal architectural services. Construction is expected to start immediately and take forty months to complete.

Expected to carry 19 million passengers the first year, the monorail system is expected to enter revenue service in 2004. Bombardier Transportation's Transit Systems unit, based in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, will be responsible for overall system design, vehicles, systems engineering and integration, supply of train control, communications and power supply systems, automatic fare collection, the operations and maintenance facility, and testing and commissioning. The monorail fleet will be built at the Bombardier Transportation manufacturing facility, also located in Kingston.

FINANCING

These driverless urban transit systems are expensive to build, and taxpayers usually do not want to raise their taxes to build them. To overcome this problem Las Vegas resorts, led by Park Place Entertainment and MGM Mirage are raising finance without using any tax money of any kind, now or ever. To accomplish this, the sponsoring resorts are investing a total of $30 million in capital to this project, and the Las Vegas Monorail Team, led by Bombardier and Granite Construction, are investing an additional $18.5 million, for a total private sector cash investment of $48.5 million. The rest of the required capital will be financed by tax-exempt non-recourse revenue bonds tied to farebox and advertising revenue.

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