A Bicycle Weekend In Las Vegas: Let’s Go For a Ride To Strip, Arena, Stadium
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher/Writer
There’s a quiet satisfaction as I ride my bicycle along the Strip Saturday morning to take photos of the road construction and repaving work for the Formula 1 car race that’s coming in November.
It’s 8 AM and the traffic is thin as I easily bike down the famed thoroughfare that’s home to the over-the-top hotel-casinos that look like out-of-scale props from a Hollywood set. The Las Vegas tourism people and the county politicians are giddy about the Las Vegas Grand Prix coming to the Strip. So much so that the road paving work that’s snarling traffic is passed off as just an “inconvenience” like you waiting behind a few customers at the Costco self checkout line.
I ride my bicycle on the Strip through the Flamingo Road intersection and a few minutes down the road I make a right on Park Avenue and pedal to T-Mobile Arena, which hosts Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs between the Vegas Golden Knights and the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday evening.
The $375 million arena, which was privately built by MGM Resorts International and Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), turned seven years old this month.
On this Saturday, the Golden Knights are practicing at the 17,367-seat arena instead of their usual rink at City National Arena in Summerlin 12 miles to the west.
The arena’s importance to Las Vegas’ exploding sports industry cannot be overstated. To put it simply, the Golden Knights are here because of the arena, which has a copper veneer and several standing room only areas that allow the VGK to average about 18,000 fans a game, or about 103 percent of capacity. It cannot be stressed enough: this vital sports venue did not include a nickel in public money to build.
Right next door to the arena is Tropicana Avenue, which, along with Flamingo Road, is a main road that links Interstate 15 with the Strip. The road is under reconstruction. I bike over to the construction scene and marvel over the Nevada Department of Transportation’s ability to wreck havoc on the lives of people with such poor road work and to deliver no comprehensive transportation system.
With my bicycle, I circumvent the Nevada DOT road mess by following back streets to the Strip and little, quirky side roads to reach the Raiders-run Allegiant Stadium.
It took some time and gentle badgering from LVSportsBiz.com, but the Raiders actually installed three sets of bike racks on a sidewalk in a parking lot on the stadium’s north side. The truth is as much as Las Vegas yearns to be considered major league, its transportation system is bush league. You’re pretty much on your own, either relying on your car, a ride share or a bus system that is not used enough because it’s not comprehensive enough. I get around on my bicycle in a more efficient way.
The Raiders, which operate the stadium that took $750 million in public dollars to build, striped a bike lane in its parking lot to guide people on bicycles to the ramp.
I pedaled to the south side of the stadium and saw the construction work for a parking garage.
*
The day before on Friday while bicycling home on Sahara Avenue, I stopped off at the Sahara West library branch and suggested to workers the library move its bike racks from around the building to a much more convenient and closer spot to the side of the entrance under a cover while being away from any library users walking into the building. The bike racks were so far away from the entrance that my impression was that the library wanted to deter bicyclists from using the public building.
When I showed a library staffer my suggested spot, a security guard came out to monitor me as if I was a suspicious character. Insulting and disrespectful.
I promptly left and headed home.
You detect a theme — a metropolitan area obsessed with being a major league sports market at the expense of having minor league schools, transportation and health care systems. If only elected officials and the hotel companies that run the Strip showed the same sense of urgency to build the best schools, health care and transportation like they showed when building a publicly-subsidized stadium for an NFL team.
*
On Saturday after lunch, I hopped on the bicycle again for the second ride of the pedaling doubleheader that day.
I biked along State Road 159 from Summerlin to the Red Rock Scenic Drive Saturday afternoon. This two-lane corridor has become a dangerous bicycle ride because motorists routinely go much faster than the 50 mph hour speed limit, sometimes buzzing bicyclists pedaling on the SR 159 shoulder.
Again, the Nevada Department of Cars — the Nevada DOT — has failed us by not doing ant remedial work to stop the motorists from parking on the shoulder and blocking bicyclists; from making illegal U-turns; and from routinely speeding. Construction for a proposed bike trail called the Legacy Trail from Summerlin to the Red Rock Visitors Center will not start until 2025 at the earliest. How about biking on SR 159 here?
You detect a theme — a metropolitan area obsessed with being a major league sports market at the expense of having minor league schools, transportation and health care systems. If only elected officials and the hotel companies that run the Strip showed the same sense of urgency to build the best schools, health care and transportation like they showed when building a publicly-subsidized stadium for an NFL team.
*
On Sunday, I hit the road again with the bicycle, following a 25-mile route in the morning when it’s quiet from 7AM to 9:30AM.
In the afternoon, I followed ,y drive and bike routine to attend the national broadcasters show at Las Vegas Convention Center. I park my car on a quiet street near the convention center, then ride my bicycle right to the convention center, where I find a bike rack to lock my bike.
Later that evening, I biked from my home to the Red Rock hotel-casino. The parking garage provides a horrible bike rack that’s flush against a concrete wall, providing little space for people who arrive via bicycle to secure their transportation.
I watched the Denver Nuggets and “The Joker” manhandle the Minnesota Timberwolves and returned to the bike rack to unlock my chain and head home.
I tell the valet guy about the antiquated bike rack and its poor location. He gets it. He said he can’t make the bike rack situation better. But he said he would pass it on.
I biked home thinking Las Vegas is a fun sports town, but comes up short in so many other areas and nobody seems to make the connection between the two.
