A WARNING TO LAS VEGAS VISITORS
Be warned. Rideshare options are going to suck ass in the coming months, and maybe longer, if you’re visiting Las Vegas. If you expect to hop and skip around the Las Vegas Strip using the main providers — Uber and Lyft — you’ve got quite an adjustment in thinking coming. It will be a rude surprise, if you’re unprepared.
Wait times are already bad. Access streets in the casino latticework of flow channels are already narrowed down to just a lane or two. It’s like looking at your cholesterol after eating 60 years of nothing but cheeseburgers. Call it a traffic aneurysm.
Traffic in the central to south end of The Strip was already bad before. With the appalling F1 car race basically turning our streets into Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine it’s all about to get worse. Much worse. Fact: If you think you’re getting an Uber or Lyft to pick you up after a game at the Golden Knights’ arena, or on a busy weekend night, or when a popular nightclub is letting out, I’ve got a sailboat at Burning Man to sell you. Not happening.
Full Disclosure: I drove for Lyft for a few months during 2019. Rideshare was at its peak back then (in the number of drivers–it looked like easy money–now, drivers caught onto the fact the pay sucks and they can’t find enough drivers).
Another reason–The Strip has become a giant parking lot. No sane rideshare driver is going to waste half an hour just to navigating stationary traffic, then blow another half hour hauling some drunk tourist a few miles down The Strip for a $7.50 fare (that’s the drivers’ cut). No driver is burning a tank of gas (which he pays for out of his own pocket) to idle in standstill traffic. Oh, and if you are wanting a pickup from any spot behind Flamingo, Harrah’s, the Link, the Sphere, and that whole zombie clusterfuck of a mess (the worst planned urban project I’ve ever seen–there is ONE access road into the entire back end of those properties and it might be an hour turnaround to get in and out on a Fri. and Sat. night), you better bring a thick book to read while you wait. Or, perhaps you can stare at the Sphere–which is pretty to look at, but an impossible nightmare making a bad traffic gauntlet much worse. I’ve read comments from drivers here in local media that they simply will NOT pick up there anymore. Nor should they.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on EDC. Most drivers won’t even bother. Any driver who shuttles EDC riders has the brain of a fucking flea.
Rideshare remains a great option otherwise in Las Vegas. Going to the airport or riding around town to get places away from The Strip will remain ridesharing’s best win-win situation. However, think again if you expect rideshare drivers to work for free to pick you up after sporting events, concerts, and weekend nights on The Strip. As for the F1 car race, it’s going to be a riot to watch all the chaos when 95,000 desperate visitors can’t get around because there’s no ground transportation and no one wants to come within a mile of that cesspool.
Like I said, be warned.