Buying reduced fare or longer time passes

As well as the vending machines, 30 day passes can be bought at these locations, but there may be a service fee:

http://www.rtcsouthernnevada.com/transit/fare_vendors.cfm

Some passes, like 30 day passes and some reduced fare passes dont' seem to be always offered in the vending machines.

Here is a report about buying from the South Strip TT
"Called the SSTT and they said you could get discounted-fare passes during normal working hours, which she defined to me as 7am to 6pm."

Deciding to WAX or not

One of the changes in November was the opening of the new BTC.  This is five blocks from the Fremont Experience and the casinos.  Some don't mind the walk, but I don't want to make it solo with luggage and perhaps not at all.  So getting by bus between downtown casinos and the BTC means catching a bus.  This is a great summary of all the possible ways to do that collected by a Vegas local who is very savy about bus routes, fares, and schedules.
Remember that the Deuce and the SDX will not always welcome luggage if it is larger than a student bookbag.

PDOG’S INFORMATION

from Vegasmessage board.

Yeah, often before you can WAX on, WAX off, you have to allow time to WANE.
And while the English idiom is generally "WAX and WANE," the bus reality is generally more like, "WANE and WAX."

However, there is the alternative of the 108 or 109 and then something else to get you from the BTC, like 113(or see below for more choices.)
It is tempting when you see that 108 or the 109 coming and going.
However, the trade off is do you want to spend time on the bus or on the bus stop bench.
I'd rather bring a book to the bus stop and sit in the open air than be in the start, stop, change buses mode of the other routes to save in the end maybe 10 minutes. And if you are not getting a 24 hour pass, then one bus is cheaper, just $2 for youngsters who don't have a senior ID, $1 for those of us who have matured. Probably you are going to buy that 5 day bus pass downtown, so it is good to get to Walgreen's as cheaply as possible, paying one way only once.

Whatever you do, don't take the 109 that heads in the wrong direction and go to the South Strip Transfer Terminal. Be certain any 109 is heading North to downtown.
And don't take the 107 from the BTC because someone tells you it ends up close to the El Cortez. You want to be dropped off close to the Fremont Experience even if that is a bit longer walk to the El Cortez, and not up near the Western Casino with your luggage.
A good part of planning bus adventures is knowing where you are going to be dropped off and what its like in that vicinity.

The WAX is faster, uncrowded and uncomplicated. WAX on at the airport. WAX off right there at Walgreen's.

And 4th and Fremont is probably what you want unless you are staying at Main Street Station or the new Plaza and you opt for 108 or 109 to the BTC. Then you might like being dropped closer to those casinos and the drop off is a safe one.

These are the routes you can take from BTC to downtown:

All these take you onto Main Street (near Main Street Station or Plaza)
Route 106 northbound
Route 207 East
Route 208 West
Route 214

*********************************************************
To get near Walgreen's on Fremont:
Route 215 (drops you off at 4th and Fremont)
Route 113 or the MAX (4th and Fremont)
WAX/Centennial Express northbound (4th and Fremont)
Route 402 (4th and Fremont)

Here are the two I would skip with luggage:
Route 107 (LVB and Carson)
Route 208 East (LVB and Carson)




PDog adds:
"There's a ton of routes to get you downtown from the BTC. Don't limit yourself to one or two routes. Just because the terminal isn't as convenient as it once was doesn't mean that the rest of downtown is inaccessible.



From downtown to the BTC, just walk over to LVB and Fremont and catch the Deuce, walk to Casino Center by the Binions for the SDX, WAX and Centennial Express, wait on Main Street by the old rail car next to MSS and catch the 207 West, 106A/B south, Route 214 and Route 208 East."


*******************************************************
Deciding to bus or not - reflections


Time is certainly a factor for most folks. It is not for me because I go for 15 or more days at a time. I also wake up so damned early. It is an old age disease.
So, the bus ride fills time when it really feels too early to gamble.
I do agree that the time argument may be changing, however. If I catch the WAX right, I will certainly beat the paid shuttle to the Orleans this next trip.
And folks reading this who have only some horridly crowded experience on the Deuce with which to judge bus travel, might want to reassess. I avoid the Deuce whenever possible.

I also enjoy the experience. Often I engage someone who has an interesting story and that is one of the reasons I go to Vegas. I like to be in a community of strangers and hear their stories and get information.
In a sense the bus is just like this board.
Two places in Vegas let me do that, the bus and the 2-4 poker table. When I can't engage, I can watch and overhear. I have met some of the most fascinating folks on the bus.
I also like the tour experience. I was so angry when they started to drape the Deuce in those outside advertisements that made the rider experience more only Vegas noir with everything barely visible and dark. However, even on those buses, when I went to where the routes started, I could often get a front seat and the view of the strip from those front windows is wonderful. Once riding along with me from downtown to Flamingo was an old fellow who knew so much detail on each place that a few of us got a guided tour and heard old stories. He was very entertaining.

However, the is a place where lower class and working folks mingle with the more affluent. Some affluent folks would prefer to be insulated in communities of people who are all like themselves. The fine thing about Vegas is that the choices are there to engage or insulate.

And, of course, I enjoy the savings. Vegas for me is a totally frugal experience. My wife says when asked by concerned nongambling friends if I am addicted to gambling,
"No, he is addicted to coupons."
Frugal Vegas allows me to afford my half of the other trips I take with my wife (we keep separate money) So in April and November of this year, I go to Vegas solo on the dirt cheap. But in July I have a good deal on going with my wife, son and his wife and new grandchild to Atlantis for 6 days. Although as the official babysitters, we have a great deal through his company for both rooms and food, that means getting some room worth $800 for only $200 and paying probably close to a hundred a day for food. If I did Vegas as many high rollers do, I would have to cancel both Vegas trips this year to pay for the Atlantis or go into debt.

Retired I just have more time than money. I prefer to travel often rather than to travel high class and stay home the rest of the time.

And while my wife has a different comfort level, I really am more comfortable around less affluent folks. Everywhere I go I tend to ride a bus. In Costa Rica I could have ridden a tourist bus to the beach, but I chose the Tico bus. $4 over $25 but I had to watch my own luggage and walk a ways to find a place to buy a ticket and do without air conditioning. Also there was only one bathroom break in a small town with a very basic toliet in the back of a bar.
But the Tico bus meant instead of riding alongside some tourist from Iowa who knew nothing of the culture (my trip on tourist bus with my wife), I rode alongside a pretty twenty two year old Tika who by the end of the trip adopted me as her grandfather and introduced me to her family when the bus stopped at the beach. She practiced English and I practiced Spanish. On my next trip, she and her girlfriend drove me all around areas of Costa Rica I had never seen. I sent her some music she had been looking for, music her deceased mother had played when the girl was eleven, and she translated some bolero songs for me (the bus driver played boleros all the way to the beach) That was eight years ago. She is still my Facebook friend.
On my way back I rode from the beach I rode with a young college student who was studying architecture and he explained to me what his dreams were, how he wanted to make Costa Rica more green by changing the design of the way they build houses.

So wherever I go I seek out the bus or subway routes because I find them as entertaining as a show.


**************************************************************
another written approach to this issue-  GOOD BOILERPLATE HERE


Yeah, often before you can WAX on, WAX off, you have to allow time to WANE.
And while the English idiom is generally "WAX and WANE," the bus reality is generally more like, "WANE and WAX."

However, there is the alternative of the 108 or 109 and then something else to get you from the BTC, like 113(or see below for more choices.)
It is tempting when you see that 108 or the 109 coming and going.
However, the trade off is do you want to spend time on the bus or on the bus stop bench.
Most of the time I'd rather bring a book to the bus stop and sit in the open air than be in the start, stop, change buses mode of the other routes to save in the end maybe 10 minutes. And if you are not getting a 24 hour pass, then one bus is cheaper, just $2 for youngsters who don't have a senior ID, $1 for those of us who have matured. Probably you are going to buy that 5 day bus pass downtown, so it is good to get to Walgreen's as cheaply as possible, paying one way only once.

I'd like others to do the time math. I am estimating that the most we save in time alone by using the WAX rather than 108/109 is 20 minutes. So I guess if you arrived at the zero stop and the WAX is not due for 40 minutes but the 108 is there, we save 20 minutes. My figures give me 10 minutes to change buses at the BTC and get rolling for the last 5 minutes of the journey.

Whatever you do, don't take the 109 that heads in the wrong direction and go to the South Strip Transfer Terminal. Be certain any 109 is heading North to downtown.
And don't take the 107 from the BTC because someone tells you it ends up close to the El Cortez. You want to be dropped off close to the Fremont Experience even if that is a bit longer walk to the El Cortez, and not up near the Western Casino with your luggage.
A good part of planning bus adventures is knowing where you are going to be dropped off and what its like in that vicinity.

The WAX is faster, uncrowded and uncomplicated. WAX on at the airport. WAX off right there at Walgreen's.

And 4th and Fremont is probably what you want unless you are staying at Main Street Station or the new Plaza and you opt for 108 or 109 to the BTC. Then you might like being dropped closer to those casinos; the drop off is a safe one and you save the seven minute luggage roll down Fremont from Walgreen's.

These are the routes you can take from BTC to downtown:

All these take you onto Main Street (near Main Street Station or Plaza)
Route 106 northbound
Route 207 East
Route 208 West
Route 214

*********************************************************
To get near Walgreen's on Fremont:
Route 215 (drops you off at 4th and Fremont)
Route 113 or the MAX (4th and Fremont)
WAX/Centennial Express northbound (4th and Fremont)
Route 402 (4th and Fremont)

Here are the two I would skip with luggage:
Route 107 (LVB and Carson)
Route 208 East (LVB and Carson)

MOST CURRENT LINKS 2011

I am not giving up completely, but the new changes in Vegas busing make older posts on this blog very dated.  At best it might give a traveler an idea of how to use the bus, but s/he would have to ask if such a ride could still be possible.

At the same time, there are some patterns that seem to be emerging since November of last year, especially around the WAX, and since information is so scattered, here are some board discussions of bus information that might yield some sense of what is currently possible.

Here is the schedule for the WAX:
http://www.rtcsouthernnevada.com/transit/route/westcliff/westcliff(11-07-10).pdf

Here are some threads that seem to add information to the new routes.

added Feb. 24, 2011 = Latest on WAX.  You can see I am all questions.
http://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62226

http://blonde4ever.yuku.com/topic/18059/Re-WAX-bus-Westcliffe-Airport-Express-now-running?page=-1

http://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60609

http://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61140

This post includes the only reference to luggage on the Deuce or Goldline
http://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60108&highlight=bus
I also have a friend who goes with a small traveling bag.  I have too much luggage to make this practical, but I can get my luggage on any other bus and expect to be able to take it on the new Downtown Express even if I board at Tropicana and LN Blvd.

Added March 2011

http://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63374

http://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?p=492055#post492055



Another route that looks like it would allow access to the strip with luggage is the  Centenial Express which has one stop near the North strip on Spring Mountain or Sands road and also one that does not look too far from Flamingo on Howard Hughes Avenue.  However, I don't yet know the parking.
http://www.rtcsouthernnevada.com/transit/route/centennial/centennial(11-07-10).pdf

Posted on one board and worth saving

on buying a pass




Yes, if you buy a strip and downtown 24 hour pass, it is good on any bus in the system whether you buy it from the Deuce driver or the SDX machine or in some cases from a Deuce machine.  Just don't try to use a senior ID in a Deuce machine that only takes credit cards.

Here is what happened to me on my first attempt to use the SDX (then ACE) bak in May of 2010.

One day I was headed for M casino, using the Deuce and then the free shuttle from theFashion Show Mall.

I should have started in front of Paris and used the ACE, but I walked North and ended at a Deuce stop North of Flamingo.

There was a machine there, but it was a Deuce machine. I put my senior ID in the slot. It did not read it, but printed up these instructions:

"Push your card all the way in."

So I did.

That was a mistake. The Deuce machines are only for credit cards. They don't bring up senior reduced rates. My card was stuck.

After a while a bus came and I told the driver. It took a while for her to call, but finally she said it would be three hours before they came to open the machine and even then I could not get my ID back until I went downtown.

Amazing. My photo is on the card.

Since I was going downtown the next day to stay, I just cancelled all plans for the M and went to the Venetian to play poker and lose $475.

It just was not my day.

The next day I went to the Downtown DTC. I expected a hassle, but they had my card right there in a box full of other cards which had been lost as well, perhaps many of them in the Deuce machines.

Well, a good lesson.

 **********************************************************

Use the SDX whenever possible.  It does not run all hours, but when it does run, reports are that it is much less crowded and much faster.  Check to see it will drop you close enough to where you are going.  During the hours it does not run, the Deuce is also not so crowded.

Now here is the real question.

Not all 24 hour passes are the same.

Those bought on the Deuce or in a machine are good everywhere.

What happens if you buy a residential 24 hour pass? 

If you board first on a residential bus, i.e. one of those that is not the Deuce or the SDX, the 24 hour pass bought from the driver is less money.

  

If you then want to use that pass to ride  the Deuce, technically that residential pass is only good if you have a local ID.

But there are no upcharges in the system.

The RTC has told me the glitch in the system is that they don't check for local ID and actually that 24 hour residential pass is good on the Deuce and 

SDX as well.

Catman from the Vegasmessage board reported this:

Dewey...The first 3 times on residential buses I asked the driver your questions. First said the 24 hour $5 ticket is good for strip buses whether you live in LV or not(no upcharge). Second said the $5 ticket is only good for residential routes period. Third said the $5 ticket would require a $2 upcharge no matter where you live.

So, I stopped asking. Seems like the answer to your question does not exist.

Where it will matter is for folks who buy a 24 hour pass when boarding the WAX, the new express from the airport.  

The WAX, even though it is an express and has a three letter knickname is in the residential system.  

So seniors with an ID can get a 24 hour pass when leaving the airport for downtown for just $2.  This will turn out to be quite a deal if when they board the WAX, the 24 hour pass is good on all buses.

Also, once folks understand that this is not just an airport to downtown bus, but an airport to the strip at Tropicana or from the strip at Tropicana to downtown, and that unlike the Deuce or SDX this bus will easily accept luggage, more and more tourists may be buying 24 hour passes on that bus. There has not been a way to stay on the strip and then move to downtown with any amount of luggage on just one bus.  And the new downtown bus terminal, a full five blocks from the Fremont Experience, means that often three residential buses are necessary to make the journey from the strip to downtown with luggage.  

Now this one bus will be fast and drop right near the Experience.

Interesting too is that by the time one gets to buying 30 day passes, the distinction between the routes just goes away.  $65 full fare or $30 reduced senior fare gets a month pass period for all buses.  But you can't get these from the vending machines.  Still, a senior contemplating staying downtown and then going by cab to some place near the strip can basically get a 30 day bus pass for the cost of one cab ride.

So far, little of this is from personal experience.  I am going to have some experience with the newly scheduled buses in May and I'll report my findings.  This will include going from the airport to the Orleans by bus.  

This was difficult before last November, but now should be fairly simple.  I board the WAX, get off at Tropicana and then board the 201 and I'm there.  The ride is very short.  It I hit the schedule wrong for the WAX I might have a bit of a wait there.  We'll see.

I may also try to board the SDX with huge luggage.  

I have to get from the Rio to downtown and will try doing it with the 202 to the strip, then the SDX to Tropicana, and the WAX to downtown.  What I figure is that I can get on the SDX, but I might be asked to leave.  However, it is only one stop to Tropicana, so if they put me off, I've made my connection and I won't have to wait with luggage along those residential routes.  Here too I will be using my $2-  24 hour residential pass for the entire trip from the Rio to downtown.

That is a factor too.  

It feels safer to wait for a bus with luggage near the strip than on Swenson and Flamingo. I am pretty vulnerable with a suitcase.  I have never had a problem doing it, but I can see my potential as a guy to shake down. 

on a 30 day pass

Looking at this page on the RTC website, it may now be possible to buy the 30 day from a machine.  I have no anecdotal information on this.  So I don't know.  For a while locals were really mad because the places to buy the 30 day passes were very restricted.  Now they have opened up again I guess from the way I read this chart.

http://www.rtcsouthernnevada.com/transit/fare_passes.cfm

For us, however, if they are not in the vending machines, the easiest place is probably the BTC.  

Again, this is not something I have yet done.

I suspended the bus blog because after November I did not feel very confident with my information and knew that things were going to change anyway as the RTC works out the glitches in the system so I could post something and have it very different the next day, not know, and so send folks in the wrong direction.

I ride less and less.  

Sleeping issues make it hard for me to be away from a nap, so I don't go off for a day of bus riding often.

Live poker means that what is good gambling for me has flip flopped.  Before I wanted the good VP downtown;  now I want to be near the strip for the soft tourist games.

But this next trip I will go from casino to casino on the bus again because I caught such a good deal at Sam's Town for a week, that I patched that in between free room double nights at the Orleans and at the Rio.

I generally finish with a couple days of poker with the fellows at the El Cortez and use their free airport shuttle.  Then I can add a bag of luggage with souvenirs if I want and not be struggling with more than one suitcase on buses.

on splitting a vegas trip between downtown and the strip

All that being said, I can envision, however, especially if hotel rates go up again, a trip that starts at a downtown hotel  and then goes to a strip hotel.  For a dollar one way ticket on the WAX using my senior pass I could go to the BTC and buy a 30 day pass and then reboard any of a half dozen buses and get right near Freemont.  Then I'd be set.  I could hop around town for my entire trip on that pass, head out to offstrip casinos, or restaurants, or places like Spring Preserve or the Pinball Hall of Fame.

Then if I wanted a few days, say at the Orleans or MGM, I could use the pass to get my luggage from downtown fairly easily on the WAX.  If I don't mind a walk from Tropicana, I could get to quite a few places on the strip after being dropped at Tropicana.  I often now walk Arville from the Orleans to the Gold Coast rolling my luggage.  I guess I could roll it from the Tropicana to Flamingo without much fuss.  Just skip the treadmill that day.  Certainly I'd feel totally safe doing that.  It would have to be good weather.  I would not plan to do it in August.

on using two 24 hour passes for three nights of gambling.

However, right now the 24 hour passes are more than enough for me.  Often two of them will stretch into three days of travel if I get a late start out the first day and have one destination with walking for the second day.

The trick is to have the first ticket expire after boarding and not buy the other until hours later.  

This works for me if I decide to stay downtown but go to the strip three nights to play poker somewhere

Example,

From any downtown casino to the strip.

day one- out at 4pm and back at 2am

day two- out at 3:50 pm on the first ticket and boarding to get back on a new ticket at 2am

day three- out at anytime and boarding to come back downtown before 2am.

Getting bus from Terminal 2

For folks coming in from abroad at Terminal 2

All RTC buses serving the airport (WAX, 108 and 109) and most hotel shuttles pick up passengers on "Zero Level" below Terminal 1.

Teminal 2 Shuttle
Free shuttle bus service between Terminal 1 and 2 is available during all hours of flight operations at Terminal 2. The bus stop at Terminal 1 is located on the Zero Level below baggage claim. At Terminal 2, the bus stop is located directly in front of the ticketing lobby entrance.

Service is provided approximately every 12-15 minutes.