Clark County Approves Funding for Las Vegas Strip Pedestrian Bridge and Escalator Repairs

The Clark County Commission is moving forward with funding repairs to pedestrian bridges and out-of-service escalators along the Las Vegas Strip, addressing aging infrastructure that has frustrated visitors and local leaders alike.

County officials told commissioners they will fund fixes at multiple crossings to improve safety and keep pedestrians moving, rather than forcing them onto long flights of stairs or detours through nearby casinos. The work will move through existing procurement channels and capital plans, requiring no new taxes.

Clark County has issued an invitation to bid covering renovation work at several busy Strip crossings, including the four pedestrian bridges at Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road. The scope covers deck repairs, new handrails, fixes for water intrusion, upgraded lighting, and refurbishment of tuned mass dampers, with an estimated cost of roughly $2.3 million to $2.56 million for that package.

Commissioner Tick Segerblom noted that parts shortages from defunct manufacturers are keeping some escalators offline longer than ever. "One of the hotels will complain that our escalators are down, and we say, yeah, they are, but we ordered the part three months ago from Germany. The company doesn't exist anymore or whatever," Segerblom said. "So it's just, it's just one of those things where, over time, things just became outdated."

Visitors say the broken escalators are hard to miss. "Some of it's a little older, and it doesn't work so well, and you know, it's a lot more stairs than escalators," said Renee, who was visiting from Minnesota with Hilary. Hilary said encountering an out-of-service escalator is discouraging. "Oh, I get sad. I'll go find a different one. We're old! Our knees don't work good," she said.

Crystal, visiting from Spokane, said she noticed multiple escalators out of service in a single day. "There's a lot of them just today. I actually was walking from the Mandalay to here, and there's a lot of them that are broken," she said.

"The pedestrian bridges are extremely important to pedestrian flow across Las Vegas Boulevard to prevent accidents between vehicles and pedestrians. We appreciate the county for continuing to maintain this critical infrastructure in the resort corridor," Virginia Valentine, CEO of the Nevada Resort Association, said in a statement.

The county plans to tap a dedicated strip resort corridor room tax to fund the improvements rather than raising property or sales taxes.