"We're taking a taxi, and it sucks," said the 42-year-old nail-care consultant from Baldwin, N.Y., waiting with a friend for a $12 cab ride.

If the $650 million rail project wasn't months behind schedule, she could have whisked between the convention center and some of the Strip's biggest hotel-casinos for $3.

Instead, riderless trains glide between stations on white elevated concrete rails above a side street behind the Las Vegas Strip.

"It's not going to open until it's reliable and able to provide an efficient and safe mode of transportation," said Cam Walker, president and chief executive of Transit Systems Management, the private company that will operate the monorail for the nonprofit Las Vegas Monorail Co.

The opening, originally scheduled for Jan. 20, was first postponed to March and then to sometime this summer after a drive shaft fell off a train during testing in January and technicians detected a glitch in a computer control system in February.

The drive shaft was fixed, Walker said, but the software problem has proved more daunting.

The control system is designed to keep a safe distance between trains running at up to 50 mph on the 3.9-mile track.

"It's not that the trains are going to hit each other, Walker said. "But the integrity of the information exchange was in question."

Once the system can handle seven trains at a time, it must run for 30 days before Clark County issues a permit and passenger service begins.

So far, up to five trains at a time were being tested, Walker said.

The delay has Canadian transportation mogul Bombardier and project partner Granite Construction Co. of Watsonville, Calif., paying about $85,000 a day in construction penalties, Walker said.

Paris-based Alcatel, builder of the SelTrac S40 Automatic Train Operating System, referred questions to Bombardier.

Helene Gagnon, North America spokeswoman for Bombardier Transportation in St. Bruno, Quebec, said her corporation was less concerned about when the system opens than with making sure it runs properly.

"It is true we're late compared to the Jan. 20 date," Gagnon said. "It's important to take the time and make sure we get it right."

Gagnon denied the Las Vegas monorail was affected when the Bombardier train division reorganized in March, or when the company's Kingston, Ontario, manufacturing plant was mothballed in December after Las Vegas' nine trains rolled off the line and about 175 people were laid off.

State anticipates payoff

But the timing raised eyebrows among some Nevada lawmakers concerned the state could be left holding the bag after floating the biggest bond in state history on behalf of the monorail company.

"I still think you need more oversight when the state's bond rating is on the line, and there have obviously been problems," said state Sen. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, who lost a bid last year for more legislative oversight of the public-private project.

Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, who approved the money as a member of the state Board of Finance, guaranteed at the August 2001 groundbreaking that taxpayers would have no risk because private investors were buying the bonds and the monorail company was buying insurance.

A total of $644.3 million in tax-exempt bonds were sold — to be repaid over 40 years with fare box and advertising revenues.

The company has sold advertising space on four of the trains as moving billboards at $1 million each a year, and advertising rights at the convention center station to Nextel for $2 million annually.

"If the project fails or doesn't meet its obligations, the state doesn't pay, the insurance company pays," said Sydney Wickliffe, state director of business and industry.

Analysts not worried

Wall Street analysts seem to be on board, after meeting with Walker and other project officials in April.

"It's a one-of-a-kind system in a one-of-a-kind market," Moody's analyst Anne Van Praagh said. "It's a conventioneers-and-tourists train, and it hits a number of the highlights along the Strip. That should bode well for the financial performance."

Fitch analyst Scott Trommer called the delay a concern, but noted the project remained under budget with a $30 million contingency fund that can carry it through at least next January.

Nevertheless, tourism officials are eager to get trains full of visitors rolling, and the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada has a lot riding on the monorail opening by Sept. 30.

Jacob Snow, general manager of the regional transit authority, pointed to a $453 million construction cost guarantee with Bombardier and Granite on a plan to extend the monorail 2.5 miles to downtown Las Vegas by 2008. A separate project would extend the line two miles to the airport by 2012.

Snow said the price guarantee expires at the end of the third quarter, and a $160 million federal transit grant also is at stake.

"We've been told by the federal government that they want to see this project up and running and performing well before they commit the money," Snow said. "We don't want to have to incur any sort of cost increase if there's a delay."

Fall opening expected

Walker, whose company would build the next phase of the project, said he expects the monorail to be running before September.

With 35 million visitors a year to Las Vegas, Walker anticipates no trouble selling 19.1 million tickets a year with automated ticketing at seven stations and remote terminals at hotels.

Wall Street analysts said they expect many riders will make repeat trips to and from the convention center.

Battista Locatelli, the singing owner of a tourist-oriented Italian restaurant beneath the Flamingo Road station, said he can hardly wait.

"It'll be wall-to-wall good for business," Locatelli said. "This is the future. People coming to the convention center won't have to wait for the taxi or the bus."

Trains are scheduled at stations every four to five minutes, and take 14 minutes to run from one end of the line to the other.

"Of course you want it to open as soon as possible," said Bruce Woodbury, a county commissioner and chairman of the Regional Transportation Commission. But, he added: "A far worse scenario than delays would be to start it up and then have to shut it down for any reason."

Williams, the New York nail-care consultant, hopes the system is running when she returns for another trade show in July.