Since you did the copy/paste thing last time, I owe you one...

The article reads:

Lucas Rosa doesn't have to be a traffic engineer to realize there is a problem on the Las Vegas Strip.

From his security guard perch at the front of the Fantasia souvenir store, Rosa has watched drivers fist-fight, crash into each other or make desperate moves to escape nightmarish traffic jams. And every year it seems to get worse.

"They need to synchronize those traffic lights because they're too long and traffic backs up quickly," said Rosa, nearly an expert after two years spent observing traffic. "And they need to catch those jaywalkers."

Ian Murray sees it too. The valet supervisor at the Paris Las Vegas has seen agitated motorists speed into the driveway wanting nothing more than to bail out of their vehicle and toss their keys at a valet.

"They get upset before they even get here and anything else that happens only compounds it," Murray said. "If they have to wait five minutes, they freak."

With 80,000 vehicles a day traversing the resort corridor -- a four-mile stretch studded with 24 traffic signals -- Clark County and state officials are scrambling to find new methods to relieve congestion on the Strip.

But some believe transportation officials missed their opportunity. With the surge of new megaresorts, each with elaborate and pricey landscaping that practically touches the curbside, widening the corridor isn't an option.

Transit systems along the Strip? That too would be a challenge since any monorail or street car would have to maneuver around such casino landmarks as the Eiffel Tower or replace medians smothered with palm trees.

Even the existing Citizens Area Transit bus system can sometimes cause more congestion than it alleviates. Though the buses operate at full capacity, they stop a total of 39 times between Sahara Avenue and Russell Road and most times block a traffic lane.

Russell Driver, chairman of Citizens for Better Transportation, said the fact the county only recently required major resorts to include bus pullouts in their design is an example of poor planning.

"It's a lack of foresight if anything," Driver said of the 12 bus pullouts on the Strip. "If anything chaps you off, it's getting stuck behind a bus."

Driver, who founded his organization in the early 1980s, claimed politics and bickering has blocked transportation project that would have kept the Strip from being overwhelmed by traffic.

To this day, he said, promising projects are blocked by special interest groups who fear they will lose business. County sources agreed that politicking has interfered with many proposals.

"As fast as this community has grown, politics have grown with it," Driver said. "You have to drag people by the necktie to get anything done."

Perhaps the most effective transportation proposal was shot down in the late 1980s: a European-engineered monorail that would have run the length of the Strip above the median.

Even that idea was hardly innovative. In 1958 a transit team pushed a bizarre system in which round gondolas were strung on cables 17 feet above the ground. The aerial tramway called "skyride" would have traveled 12 mph.

The Las Vegas Strip is now home to 14 of the nation's 15 largest hotels. And while locals will do anything to avoid the corridor, especially on weekends, the bumper-to-bumper traffic hasn't bothered tourists.

Las Vegas Convention and Visitor Authority spokesman Rob Powers said his organization recently conducted a study asking tourists what bothered them most about Las Vegas. Topping the list was lines to shows.

"Their experience is so positive here that the congestion is not a significant blip on their radar screens," Powers said. "But infrastructure needs are paramount. Just because the level of dissatisfaction isn't high doesn't mean it shouldn't be addressed."

Transportation experts agree if something is to be done to please visitors and appease locals, it had better be done soon.

"Roadways are becoming more and more expensive and we're running out of places to put them," said Roger Patton, a traffic engineer with Louis Berger & Associates.

A new monorail recently introduced by a collection of hotel-casino owners is expected to lure some residents and tourists out of their vehicles.

Both proponents and the opposition heavily lobbied state and county officials, but it was the monorail group led by consultant Bob Broadbent -- a former Clark County Commissioner -- who won the battle.

The $650 million monorail project will extend the existing system between the MGM Grand and Bally's north to the Sahara hotel-casino.

While Broadbent has insisted resort employees will commute to work using the monorail, most transportation experts agree it will primarily cater to tourists. The new Frank Sinatra Drive, an Interstate 15 frontage road expected to be completed in 2002, will be most beneficial to residents.

County officials believe the four-lane road will take between 30,000 and 40,000 vehicles off Las Vegas Boulevard daily.

"This is a great option for employees and deliveries," said Ken Lambert, a public works project manager. "I don't expect traffic to dry up on the Strip, but I think people will choose the shorter more convenient rout."

Frank Sinatra Drive will run from Russell Road two miles north to Flamingo Road where it will connect with Industrial Road -- already a popular back route for residents wanting to avoid the Strip.

The Public Works Department's second major road project this year will be the extension of Harmon Avenue west across the Strip and I-15.

Lambert said the Harmon extension will fill the gap between Tropicana Avenue and Flamingo Road where there are no east-west thoroughfares for commuters -- a frustration for employees who work on or near the corridor.

"You always try to avoid the Strip, but you have to cross it at some point," said Ron Hurt, an employee at Fantasia who has mapped out a strategic plan to get home each night. "I try to get off the Strip as soon as possible."

The county's most effective method to keep traffic moving smoothly, despite the increasing number of tourists, has been pedestrian bridges. But they too can be difficult to build with hotels battling over the locations of landings.

"They are contentious projects," Lambert said. "Everybody wants to be on a level playing field.

"These resorts have invested so much to create an attractive environment to induce people to these places. They have a lot on the line, so obviously they want what's best for their resorts."

Once constructed, however, pedestrian bridges are a proven solution. Lambert said 20 percent more vehicles make it through intersections that have bridges.

The county has yet to determine how it will work around backups that occur because of stopped buses. The Regional Transportation Commission has considered designating lanes for the popular Strip routes.

While critics of the plan believe it will only compound traffic problems, others say it will improve traffic flow.

Fare box revenues have proven that visitors and employees do ride the 301 route, which stops about 20 times along the Strip, and the express 302, which stops only four times. A 301 bus picks up at each stop every seven minutes.

"If we were to add more service, we would have to add a bus-only lane," said Ingrid Yocum, spokeswoman for the RTC. "But that is not any time in the immediate future."

Buses, new roads and pedestrian bridges won't solve all the problems. Motorists often creep along gawking at water shows, pirate battles or lights. There also are plenty of jaywalkers who slow traffic. As one official said, "You can't plan for stupidity."

As Murray watched a crew of swamped hotel valets service new arrivals and fetch vehicles, he agreed with most experts' view: Something needs to be done to alleviate traffic on the Strip, but the increasing congestion will never drive away visitors.

"I think people will still come," Murray said. "They'll just be more frustrated and meaner."