Fremont Street expansion                                        

Course to a Las Vegas taxi driver the answer to the above question is a simple…”allow more Cabs to pick-up and drop-off at your address”, DUH.  

But as most taxi drivers know, most Planners-Managers-ignore our suggestions outright because the false belief is most taxi drivers are one-step removed from monkeydom and how could they possibly know anything? This belief allows Society to under-pay drivers for the huge value they provide. I would also conclude there is a concerted effort on the part of some in this City to make it as painful as possible to move around as they want people stuck inside their Casinos.

Neonopolis has never worked, and will never work because there is not a single Taxi Stand at or next to this City of Las Vegas taxpayer sinkhole. If you do not have a way people with “some money” can exit and hire Taxis at Neonopolis (or anywhere in Clark County), your mostly tourist based Business-Event-Service is not going to work, PERIOD.

So as we witness the opening of the East Fremont Street expansion, and also see not a single new Taxi Stand included at this new area (we have actually lost one stand), one can confidently conclude like Neonopolis, the East project will tank. $6 million potentially down the drain because not one overpaid City Planner can figure-out to make “it safe”, you have to have Taxis present.

Tourists WILL NOT VENTURE where they do not have access to Taxis. Taxis they view as SAFE and PREDICTABLE and as an exit if and when they need it. Telling Tourists it is safe or spending $6 million dollars may look like it works but the reality is it doesn’t citing Neonopolis as the last example of expensive wishful thinking…..

While I do not doubt the sincere efforts of Mayor Oscar Goodman, I cannot say the same for his Planning Department or City Manager. How they could simply overlook the dire need for taxi stands in the Expansion plan is to dwell in the place where fairies exist. This is the same Department who has sitting on their website an almost 13mb pdf file detaling down to the screws, how this new East Fremont Street expansion project is to look and be built. Am I suggesting some maybe doing the Strip casinos a service by not making Fremont Street appealing to Tourists which would include making it hard to use a Taxi downtown? Yep and that is my opinion based on what I see.

Keep the notion Fremont Street is dangerous and dirty and you keep millions of gaming and retail dollars OUT of the City and in the pockets of Strip Operators. Is this perception an accident or a well-crafted and managed Jig? How hard is it to allow Taxis access to move people? not hard at all.

You FIX Neonopolis and make Downtown a vibrant must-see for every Las Vegas Visitor in large measure by making the entire Downtown Area ultra Taxi-Friendly. 

neonopolis downtown las vegas