VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: Strip Bridges Were Built to Funnel Tourists Into Casinos
Posted on: May 18, 2026, 07:10h.
Last updated on: May 18, 2026, 07:10h.
For decades, a persistent Las Vegas myth has bounced around the internet’s least scholarly corners: that the Strip’s pedestrian bridges were built to funnel tourists into casinos.
Supposedly, casino operators in the mid -’90s pressured Clark County to eliminate street‑level crosswalks just to force visitors onto elevated walkways that conveniently deposit them onto gaming floors.
This myth — or at least a barely intelligible variant of it — was repeated in the comments beneath Casino.org‘s recent story about the prevalence of broken escalators on the Strip.
Objecting to the story’s well-supported premise that escalators remain broken longer because of a critical scarcity of specialized parts, one commenter replied: “Bull****. Parts are no problem. The casinos want the rerouting of people around slot machines and into the seats of the casino!!”
Myth Understood
The only legal way to cross the Las Vegas Strip’s busiest intersections anymore is by pedestrian bridge. When you ascend the stairs, escalator or elevator to any of them, the first thing you see on the other side is a second-floor casino entrance:
- Tropicana Avenue: MGM Grand, New York-New York, Excalibur
- Flamingo Road: Caesars Palace, Horseshoe, Bellagio
- Harmon Avenue: Cosmopolitan and Planet Hollywood
- Spring Mountain: Treasure Island and Venetian
But you know what you also find at the end of each of those bridges? A dedicated set of stairs, elevators, and up-and-down escalators leading directly to the public sidewalk on the other side of the Strip. There’s no need to enter a casino, unless you have mobility issues and one or both of the elevators is broken.
More importantly, everything at ground level on the Las Vegas Strip also sits near a casino entrance!
Bridge to Reality
The bridges were built to keep people alive, not to steer them into slot chairs. By the ’90s, traffic was exploding, visitor numbers were surging, and the Las Vegas Strip had become one of the most dangerous pedestrian corridors to cross in the U.S.
Nevada Department of Transportation records from the five years leading up to the bridge projects (1989-1994) showed more than a dozen fatalities, and hundreds of serious injuries, at the Flamingo, Tropicana, and Spring Mountain intersections.
Clark County engineers recommended elevated walkways as the only viable long‑term solution to the increasingly unsafe crosswalks.
Contrary to the myth, several major resorts (including the MGM Grand, Venetian, and Wynn) opposed the bridges. Public bridges challenged their argument that their sidewalks were private property and, therefore, they could legally block union picketing on them.
Internal county meeting minutes from the 1990s also show concerns from resorts about how the bridges would affect valet access, frontage visibility, and vehicle flow. Some casinos worried that elevated walkways would actually pull pedestrians away from their entrances, not toward them.
The county moved forward anyway, citing public‑safety imperatives. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals later ruled that the bridges were public forums.
Today, the bridges move tens of thousands of people safely every day, especially during major events. They are, by any objective measure, a public‑safety success story.
Look for “Vegas Myths Busted” every Monday on Casino.org. Visit VegasMythsBusted.com to read previously busted Vegas myths. Got a suggestion for a Vegas myth that needs busting? Email corey@casino.org.
Last Comments ( 6 )
Isn't there still a way to cross the street at street level from Bellagio to Planet Hollywood. By the way it's pretty dangerous to walk there. I see cars buzz through the crowds there.
"The only legal way to cross the Las Vegas Strip’s busiest intersections anymore is by pedestrian bridge." There is a ground level crosswalk at the corner of Caesars and Mirage/Hard Rock that crosses to Harrah's.
"The bridges were built to keep people alive." That was not the primary reason. Like everything else in Clark County, the bridges were built with cars as the foremost concern. They were for the flow of traffic first, public safety and everything else last.
I resent those pedestrian bridges. Why must pedestrians walk away from the strip to board the escalator, go up, go over, go down and then walk back in? All that just to cross the street. The CARS should have been moved. The roadway should be dropped and the sidewalks widened with surface crosswalk over the carved out roadway. The Strip is a tourist area that survives on high volume foot traffic, cars are clearly the nuisance.
The bridges were built for public safety. That does not mean they were not also made to funnel people into casinos. Both can be true. Why is there direct entrances from the bridges into the casinos? Who paid for the added cost of connecting the casinos to the bridge, was it tax payers or the casinos themselves? I feel like your purposely only showing evidence for 1 side of the argument while conveniently leaving out the evidence for the other. Please dont write 1 sided articles, your readers aren't as naive as your one sided writing assumes.
The bridge to the bellagio requires you to go inside the bellagio