Getting Around

Every casino has a line of taxis waiting at its front entrance. Standard fares are $2.20 for the first mile and $1.50 for each additional mile, but the meter continues to run when you're caught in traffic. A $1.20 surcharge is added for trips to the airport; we've listed sample fares for the airport run. Tip the driver between fifteen and twenty percent.

CAT buses (tel 228-7433, ) serve the entire city from their hub at the Downtown Transportation Center (daily 6am-10pm), a couple of blocks north of Fremont Street at Stewart Avenue and Casino Center Boulevard.

Two routes, #301 and the express #302 , run the length of the Strip and continue to downtown, with services every ten minutes between 5.30am and 12.30am, and every fifteen minutes from 12.30am until 5.30am. The flat fare is $2. Services in the rest of town operate between 5.30am and 1.30am only, for a flat fare of $1.25. A monthly pass for all CAT buses, sold at the Downtown Transportation Center, costs $30.

Several Strip properties are connected by means of free monorail services. Such systems link Excalibur with Mandalay Bay via Luxor ; the MGM Grand with Bally's; Bellagio with the Monte Carlo ; and the Mirage with Treasure Island .

There has long been talk of constructing a single light-rail system that would not only run the length of the Strip but also extend as far as downtown. All such plans were traditionally stymied by the refusal of the Desert Inn 's management to allow it to pass over their property, but now the project has finally got the go-ahead. It's not, however, due for completion until 2006, at which time it's envisaged there will be two separate lines, one from the MGM Grand to the Sahara , and another from the Sahara to downtown.

For the moment, however, the four existing segments do not meet up. Neither do they make much of a model of public transit. Designed to serve the needs of the casinos rather than the visitors, most can only be reached by walking through the whole of the relevant casinos.