Vegas Loop Stations Open at Encore and Westgate, Airport’s Next

By Scott Roeben, on April 18 2025
7 min read 16 comments
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The Vegas Loop, Boring Company’s underground transportation system, has opened two new stations at Las Vegas resorts, a whopping 200% increase in the number of casinos connected to the Vegas Loop’s network.

By that we mean the Vegas Loop previously only went to Resorts World from the Las Vegas Convention Center. Now it goes to Encore and Westgate, too. The 200% thing just makes it sound sexier.

Anyway, we’ve got everything you need to know about all the latest development’s in the Vegas Loop realm. This is typically where we’d say something about “keeping you in the loop,” but we’re not going to sink to the level of using banal puns, you deserve better, so let’s drill down and get some dirt on the Las Vegas Loop.

They’re using the term “station” a little loosely at Encore, but just play along.

One of the great things about the Vegas Loop is Boring Company (owned by polarizing Bond villain Elon Musk) is paying for it. The resorts pay only for their stations. We estimate Wynn Resorts invested about $350 in its Vegas Loop station.

The Encore station was revised quite a bit from the early drafts.

Things change. Often for the less shady.

The Encore station of the Vegas Loop opened on Monday, April 7, 2025.

There was little hoopla. So little, in fact, from what we can see, nobody actually knows about the new station yet because, well, it doesn’t look like anything.

Boring and Wynn just sort of repurposed an old bus and shuttle stop and turned it into a pick-up and drop-off area for the Loop.

The “station” is just a few feet from Encore’s porte cochere.

You can use the Loop around the Convention Center for free.

The tunnel itself isn’t near the station. It’s behind a gate in the Wynn golf course.

We were going to pull some strings to be able to check out the tunnel entrance, then remembered we could see it by, you know, buying a ticket and riding in a Tesla.

Elon Musk couldn’t give us flying cars, so we got subterranean ones. This is the Loop tunnel in the Wynn golf course.

All the resort Loop stations go to the Las Vegas Convention Center at this point (meaning you can’t go from Resorts World to Encore directly).

The ride from Encore to the Convention Center takes about 70 seconds. This isn’t a joke. Tonya, our driver, said it takes 47 seconds. All drivers are limited to the tunnel speed limit of 35 miles an hour, but Tonya seems to have the ability to bend the time/space continuum, because it felt like she was driving 150 miles an hour.

Here’s a look at the Central Plaza station at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Vegas Loop staff are universally friendly and helpful, and not just because we wear a lanyard that says, “Media. Be Friendly and Helpful.”

As we are doing this post for posterity, here’s a photo of Elon’s hole at the Central Plaza surface station.

Even if the Vegas Loop doesn’t work out, Las Vegas is getting a free bomb shelter, so there’s that.

The reason we say “surface” station is there’s a bigass station underneath the surface station. You can get into that station by following the giant red arrow.

We aren’t sure why there’s a surface lot station when the gorgeous underground station is a few feet away, but we suspect the answer is “you can’t get there from here.”

Here’s a look at the station down below, the jewel of the Vegas Loop. Arguably, this is where you’d want all the riders going to the Las Vegas Convention Center to land, but at this point, not so much.

Elon Musk tunnel Vegas
The Vegas Loop is a work in progress. We’re sure it will all come together nicely someday.

There are four stations at the Convention Center: Riviera Station, West Station, Central Station and South Station.

At this point in the Loop’s development, it’s a shuttle to, from and around the Las Vegas Convention Center. You only need tickets if you stray from the Las Vegas Convention Center campus to visit Resorts World, Encore or Westgate.

Again, “station” is being generous. The Riviera porpoise hole is easily missable.

A ticket for one leg of the Vegas Loop is $4.00, a round trip is $6.25. In other words, dirt cheap compared to rideshare or taxis, and far fewer communicable diseases than the local RTC bus system.

You can get more ticket information on the Vegas Loop site.

A big bonus, and one of the reasons the rides are so fast, is there’s no traffic. No traffic signals. No pedestrians. No road rage.

So, we zipped to Central Station and back to Encore. It was a hoot and as we’ve experienced in the past, it felt like a thrill ride.

We also stopped by the new Loop station at Westgate in our personal, non-Tesla vehicle. No, the doors don’t open and close automatically, but we suffer through it.

The Westgate Las Vegas Loop station opened on Jan. 22, 2025.

As with other resorts in the Loop’s web, the station is near the hotel’s porte cochere. This station is more like stationlike. The tunnels “porpoise” to the surface and Tesla’s pick up and drop off in a mini-parking lot.

The biggest downside of these outdoor Loop stations is the 11 months of the year where it’s 220 degrees in the shade.

Westgate is likely to get the most Loop ridership due to it being a convention hotel.

The irony of the Westgate station is it sits beneath the hotel’s monorail station. At one time, it was thought the Las Vegas monorail would save us all. That didn’t happen thanks to the taxi companies (who prevented the monorail from going to the airport). Now, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (funded by taxpayer dollars) is looking at spending $12 million in monorail upgrades to continue operating through 2035.

Las Vegas planning agencies aren’t great at “thinking things through” or “being competent” or “not flushing taxpayer dollars.” Then again, no personal income tax.

Tickets can be purchased on your phone for any of the Loop legs. You can’t buy tickets from the attendants, no cash.

While we’re on the subject, make sure to bring cash for driver tips. There’s no place to break bills except inside the casinos. Tonya wasn’t mad that we didn’t have anything smaller than a $20 bill, but that does increase the price of a ride a fair amount.

Next up for the Vegas Loop: Virgin Las Vegas. Yes, our headline said the airport is next. Virgin is sort of a pit stop. Just move along. We are a professional blogger.

The Vegas Loop’s drill broke through at Virgin on May 24, 2024. Copious sexual jokes ensued. It’s the law.

It’s taking a hell-ton of time to get the Virgin station going. Boring Co. has told Virgin management they’re shooting for Q3 2025.

This is where the Hard Rock Cafe and its epic guitar used to be. The guitar is now on display at the Neon Museum.

Looking at the site currently, there are a lot of those tunnel wall pieces laying around. It’s unclear if those are for the tunnel between the Convention Center and Virgin, or if Boring is moving on to its next destination.

The technical name is “segmental linings.” They’re made from reinforced concrete and installed as the Vegas Loop tunnel is bored. You know, wall thingies.

Either way, Boring didn’t pick a Virgin stop because of the hotel’s good looks. Virgin is on the way to the Loop’s real moneymaker, the airport.

Boring (through its d/b/a Object Dash) purchased a 1.8-acre parcel across from the Thomas & Mack Center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), on Paradise Road across from University Center Drive, for $7.2 million.

Thomas & Mack is 2,500 feet from the airport.

You can call that Loop station a UNLV station, but make no mistake, that’s the Las Vegas airport (technically, Harry Reid International) station. Yes, taxis should be nervous, again, despite the fact nobody’s talking about it.

Getting permission and land for Loop stations inside the airport footprint seems unlikely to happen, so a station two minutes away is the next best thing.

This snazzy building will serve as the Loop station near UNLV, formerly Budget Car Rental.

What else does Boring have in the works?

They bought a site on Valley View Drive near Chinatown, as well as two parcels next to each other on Las Vegas Boulevard near the Pinball Hall of Fame.

Ultimately the Vegas Loop is supposed to have 104 stations with 68 miles of tunnel. We find it easier to remember 69 miles of tunnel for some reason, so we’re hoping they’ll just round up.

Anyway, it’s a lot, and the fact there are just three stations outside the Convention Center after six years (construction began Nov. 15, 2019), the Loop is going to take a minute.

The Vegas Loop isn’t changing the landscape of Las Vegas transportation anytime soon, if it ever does, but man, it’s fun. And cheap (so far).

In the words of the occasionally racist Dr. Seuss, “Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done!”

Conventioneers love the convenience and cost. Companies involved with conventions often schedule events (social and otherwise) at nearby resorts like Westgate and Wynn and Resorts World, so they can now bop between these off-site events with ease.

The Vegas Loop is underground rideshare, and its progress may be slow, but there’s definite progress.

It’s a huge win to have a company paying for everything, rather than saddling taxpayers will billions in a public transportation debacle.

Given the political climate, it’s worth noting Vegas Loops station currently sport a police presence (one cop car each), just to make sure those tunnels and Teslas are kept safe.

Some dumbass blew himself up in a Tesla Cybertruck in front of the Trump Hotel earlier this year.

If you’re one of those eye-rolling skeptics about the Vegas Loop, please enjoy our story about how you’re clueless.

Told you it was supposed to be flying cars.

The Vegas Loop is a perfect fit for Las Vegas. First, try it. Second, have the right expectations. It’s mostly a P.R. stunt, not a highly vetted solution to mass transportation challenges in the Las Vegas Valley.

It’s. Underground. Rideshare. And a Tesla ad, but mostly that other thing.

That’s everything you need to know about the progress of the Vegas Loop.

We didn’t really get into the specifics of which tunnels go which direction, mostly because we don’t know and even if we did, we wouldn’t really understand it. See, each leg of the Loop needs two tunnels, one in each direction. But some only have one tunnel, so the cars going in different directions have to take turns, presumably. That’s fine for a 70-second ride on a slow day (passengers would only have to wait a minute or two while a car coming in the other direction emerges from the tunnel), but how does that work during a convention?

We try not to ask too many questions. Which is another reason the Vegas Loop is perfect for Las Vegas. Questions only lead to more questions or awkward, abrupt endings to blog posts. Nobody wants that.