Adrienne Packer | ROAD WARRIOR

Monorail fan uses imagination, stopwatch

Jerry Zinnes doesn't want to come off as a "sourpuss" -- he repeats this many times.

So before we get into his four-year experiment, it's important to make this crystal clear: When Zinnes moved to town eight years ago and heard about a monorail opening on the Strip, he was as excited as anybody. He hopped aboard the second day.

"Some people told me when they saw the monorail, they knew in an instant it wasn't going to work," said the retired Indiana University psychology professor. "I didn't buy it. I thought it was a nice piece of equipment. I was very optimistic."

Zinnes, in remarkably good condition for 81 years old, is an avid photographer and walks the Strip weekly to take pictures. So, soon after the Las Vegas Monorail began rolling, he paid $35 for a 10-ride ticket -- good for a year. Although he didn't use all his rides, he figured that was simply an anomaly and ponied up for another annual pass the next year.

He made a concerted effort to ride the train whenever at all convenient. He visited the Strip at least 52 times but, still, never took full advantage of his ticket.

This isn't evolving into some complex math problem, but it wasn't adding up for Zinnes.

"I could not use up all the rides," he said. "I began to wonder why."

And being a professor, he couldn't simply wonder why -- like the rest of us might -- he had to figure out why. He invented three tourists -- Fred, Tom and Bill. For the next four years, these guys walked from casinos to monorail stations and from casinos to casinos and, of course, "rode" the train.

Only there weren't three guys making some 390 experimental trips, half from casino floors to monorail stations and half from casino to casino. Only one man took part in the study: Zinnes, a sweet fellow who proudly reveals he has undergone quadruple bypass surgery.

Zinnes clocked the time it took to walk between casinos where monorail service is available and compared it to walking from a casino floor to the nearest monorail station. For the sake of his study, he didn't include the monorail ride; he assumed it was instant. He also assumed it was free.

It's important to keep in mind that Zinnes was unaware of the controversy surrounding the monorail when the financing structure was approved by the state in 2000. He was oblivious to all the naysayers who were furious that the $600 million project was funded by tax-exempt bonds.

This is a man who was a monorail cheerleader. But something was nagging Zinnes, and he and his imaginary friends were going to hammer out the problem.

Start with Fred, whose goal was to determine if it was faster to walk to a monorail station to reach another casino or simply walk the distance. Fred compared the two from 14 different casinos ranging from the Tropicana to the south to the Wynn at the north. (The Wynn has since canceled its monorail subscription.)

Here is a taste of what he discovered. If you are at the Paris hotel-casino and headed for the Flamingo, it would take 7.80 minutes to walk the distance compared to 21.11 minutes to ride the monorail. Again, Zinnes assumed that once he is at the monorail station he was zapped into his destination property.

The problem, Zinnes quickly concluded, was that the monorail stations are too far from, well, everything. And he even gave the monorail the benefit of the doubt by assuming that Fred knew exactly where the monorail station was located. Most tourists do not; poor signage amounted to "added defects," Zinnes said.

Even when signs exist, they are misleading. At one point, Zinnes walked from a monorail sign near Mandalay Bay to the closest station, the MGM Grand, and it took more than a half hour.

"Only one of 91 possible monorail trips did not involve more than 15 minutes of walking," his report concluded of Fred's adventure.

"My times are extremely optimistic, because it assumes people know exactly where they're going," he said.

Then there was Tom, who was biased toward the monorail. He played the slot machines closest to the monorail stations. In this case, the monorail prevailed in some cases. For example, a walking trip between the MGM Grand and Planet Hollywood would be 22.70 minutes walking compared to 13 minutes riding.

"Under this scenario, just 11 of 92 possible monorail trips were superior to not taking the monorail, and also did not require more than 15 minutes of walking," Zinnes noted.

Bill is a figment of our imagination, and his trip is as well. He is trying to figure out whether to take the monorail from McCarran, which of course doesn't exist, versus a taxi.

In this case, predictably, the taxi prevails because it is a door-to-door service. From the monorail stations to the front desk it takes, for example, 14 minutes at the Paris, compared to a walk that is less than a minute after a cab drops you off. Now, in Zinnes' experiment the train is free, but really, who would want to pay $5 a person and then lug your bags for 15 minutes when a cab will run a family $20 bucks and leave you at the front desk?

"It sounds nice to go to the airport, but if you look at it, it doesn't make a lot of sense," he said.

Zinnes is stunned that nobody bothered to conduct an experiment like his before plunking down $600 million. Must I remind you he is relatively new to town?

"Someone should have looked at all this," he said. "They should have looked at the routes and which trips make the most sense. The answer is none."

Zinnes sadly concluded that the monorail is a waste of money and time. Even if it is free, a person still wouldn't ride it as frequently as they would a bus, he said.

Zinnes emphasized that the project did not consume his life; he spends time on the Strip capturing images anyway. He also is an avid violinist and active in a motorcycle club.

But this was his most important request: "Please don't make me sound like a sourpuss. I was very optimistic. I was very eager to ride the monorail."

Zinnes' report was not written for anybody, and he never received a dime. His experiment is now over, and he is looking to take on another project. If we see a fit octogenarian trekking through the desert between Las Vegas and Victorville, we'll know what he chose to explore next.

If you have a question, tip or tirade, call Adrienne Packer at 702-387-2904, or send an email to roadwarrior@reviewjournal .com. Please include your phone number.

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Comments

Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background.

1. Cynthia.Wentaway Jun. 22, 2011 | 6:37 a.m. Report Abuse

   Crin, the point is that because one government-supported project has been a disaster doesn't mean that another one automatically will fail also. There's no inherent connection. An counter-example is the interstate highway system. That example shows how illogical YOUR "thinking" is. Sorry you missed the point, but not surprised.

2. CrinVegas Jun. 21, 2011 | 7:51 p.m. Report Abuse

   Whose votes is Sharron Angle trying to drum up with her vitriolic comments? What is her motivation? And Cynthia Wentaway, the point is that the monorail has been a disaster; the interstate highway system has been a success. You and Sharron Angle are birds of a feather - masters of illogical thinking. You two must be friends.

3. Cynthia.Wentaway Jun. 21, 2011 | 7:59 a.m. Report Abuse

   Concerned.Prof and Packer both engage in a classic bit of demagoguery. In lieu of constructing a real argument, they say that if politicians propose it, it must be bad. Therefore, they say, ANTHING which comes from the government in the area of transportation MUST be bad. Well, let's see, what have those evil politicians given us? How about the interstate highway system, public sidewalks, and airports. They simply must be disasters. Nobody would ever use them. Let's tear them up! Come on Adrienne, take up the fight! If the monrail didn't work, then interstate highways won't work either! Let's start tearing down that idea for an insterstate from Vegas to Phoenix!

4. Elvis Jr Jun. 20, 2011 | 5:59 p.m. Report Abuse

   monorail has been a dump for years now!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Junior!

5. Seeker2be Jun. 20, 2011 | 5:49 p.m. Report Abuse

   The obvious reason the monorail didnt go to and from the airport is that it would have put the "horse and buggy" archaic taxicab service with their accompanying pollution and traffic snarls out of business. The monorail should have gone up the middle of the strip too.

6. Sharron.Angle Jun. 20, 2011 | 10:10 a.m. Report Abuse

   Concerned.Professor, are you a Professor of Stupidity? If so, you're at the top of your field. You are so blinded by your biases that you can't even construct a logical statement. I don't know if it's possible to dumb anything down to the point that you can understand it, so I'll just keep it plain. A monorail that makes a short, inconvenient trip around the strip is completely different from a high speed train to California. They serve entirely different purposes, by different means. I'll give you another analogy since the first one was so far over your head and Packer's head. If people don't take the helicopter to the Grand Canyon skywalk, that doesn't mean we should shut down McCarran.

7. Joe.Homeboy Jun. 19, 2011 | 6:30 p.m. Report Abuse

   Michael.McManus; Politics and juice!

8. Michael.McManus Jun. 19, 2011 | 5:55 p.m. Report Abuse

   Why did they not connect it to the airport from the initiation of the project?
   I moved here in 2006, so it was operating at the time. I do not have the background.

9. hamisch Jun. 19, 2011 | 4:26 p.m. Report Abuse

   When we were being sold this scam we were told there would be 50,000+ riders a day. All the cabs in town going to an untold number of destinations barely did that. The monorail only had seven stops in a small area. It has always been a huge scam.

10. 40-oz Jun. 19, 2011 | 3:54 p.m. Report Abuse

    Not rocket science. An education is good but not always necessary. Joe Blow and Flo just looks at the thing and do the math in their head as all lazy and time oriented people do. Proof is like the professor explained; no riders.This Train Don't Carry No Gamblers This Train. This train don't carry no ramblers no workers children or midnight gamblers - This train to is bound to nowhere this train.

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