Hacker News Reader

Comment by rustyconover | Hacker News Reader

If Uber can break the Vegas cab cartel[1] it would be very surprising to me. So far the cab companies have been able to survive everything, they've even prevented the monorail from going to the airport. Which if it did go to the airport would eliminate so many fares, because once you get to your hotel you normally just walk everywhere else.

Since this is Vegas, I'd say the proverbial smart money is still on the side of the cab companies being able to force enforcement of the law. Las Vegas has perfected the science of aligning widely varied financial interests to preserve the status quo of business as usual.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_States#L...

View on HN

> Which if it did go to the airport would eliminate so many fares, because once you get to your hotel you normally just walk everywhere else.

I disagree, there is tons of intra-strip cab travel taking place. Hotels are far apart on the strip. It'd probably take a couple hours to walk between Mandalay Bay and Encore.

Either way, Uber's implementation isn't supporting pickups at the airport or anywhere between the 15 and Paradise Rd along the strip, and even that is causing all this drama.

> It'd probably take a couple hours to walk between Mandalay Bay and Encore

I've only done that particular walk once, but walking from Tropicana to Encore (a bit farther than Mandalay - Encore) took about 45 minutes I believe; a bit of a trek, but definitely manageable.

I think in an entire week on the strip, I took a cab exactly twice; once from the airport to the strip, and once to a shopping mall off the strip. Had Uber been around when I was there, I certainly would have used it more.

The Mandalay is at the southern tip of the strip—further south than the Tropicana and further away from the Encore.

>I disagree, there is tons of intra-strip cab travel taking place.

There's alot of it, but it's decreasing. Someone that just got ready for an elegant dinner or a night at a club will take a cab or limo up or down the strip to get where they're going. However, the monorail now runs all the way from the MGM on Tropicana Ave. down to the SLS (formerly the Sahara on Sahara Ave) and has a station at the convention center. There is also The Deuce, a very tourist-friendly bus that traverses both sides of the Strip every 5 minutes or so 24/7. If there's a cab line at the hotel, The Deuce is actually faster than a cab.

I would suspect that walking, the monorail, and The Deuce handle the vast majority of inter-hotel travel. The cabs make most of their money on airport trips & trips to off-strip properties like The Palms.

Regardless, Uber should be allowed to do what they were doing. The way the Strip is setup, they couldn't really compete with cabs & limos, and that was never their plan. It would have been great for locals to get around the city.

The monorail is about the worst way to travel in Vegas. It is expensive and too far from most hotels and casinos. Unless you want to travel between two connecting casinos it is faster to walk. And if you have more than two in your party, cheaper to take a cab.

As with most things, it depends on your use case. The MGM station is the easiest one to get to, as some of the other stations (Harrah's in particular) are buried behind the hotels. There is a dedicated station at the convention center, which is great for thousands of people if they stay at one of the hotels with a station. For example, a person attending a convention at the convention center and staying at MGM - normally a $30+ cab ride each way - can get essentially door-to-door transportation both ways for 3 days for the price of a single one-way cab ride.

If you're staying at Wynn/Encore or Venetian/Palazzo, then it's not going to work. But since you're paying $400+/night there during busy times at any of those places, you might as well rent yourself a limo. The monorail is OK for some use cases.

Wouldn't it have been better to make a deal with the cab drivers so they would get some alternative jobs and Vegas would get it's monorail or some sort of tramway?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com