LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Leading up to this year’s race on the Las Vegas Strip, Formula One launched a new website to help people navigate the road closures.
MORE: Formula 1 relaunches text alerts, introduces webpage ahead of Las Vegas Strip roadwork
In creating it, they consulted with the Las Vegas Culinary Union who represents thousands of hospitality workers on the Strip.
Union leaders say they emphasized the need for maps to be in both English and Spanish, downloadable and easy to use on phones, with up-to-date information.
Strip hotel workers FOX5 spoke to said that last year. they relied more on communication from their employers, not F1, which caused some issues.
“They gave us memos at the casinos on what roads were going to be closed, and it wasn’t really accurate because the route we thought we were going to take ended up being closed,” said Sydney O’Sullivan, an MGM Grand employee. “Hopefully it will help having more accurate updates.”
“My first reaction is that they’re trying to come up with a solution,” said Domingo Escareno, a former Mirage employee looking at the new website for the first time. “I’m pretty sure it probably is working, but we need more than this.”
While Escareno and O’Sullivan agree the new website should help with communication, they said that’s only part of the issue.
“There’s just too many road closures to begin with,” said O’Sullivan. “So knowing which ones are going to be closed will help, but with that much traffic, especially on the Strip, it’s essentially bottlenecking everyone to one road. It’s still going to take me hours to get through it. It’s not going to be any faster.”
Rideshare drivers FOX5 spoke to said they weren’t aware of the new website, but they rely on notifications from their employers anyway.
“It should help the drivers. But when you have riders in the car, you can’t open the website and look. Uber sends out updates on where the closures are, so we know where they are,” said Ernesto, a Las Vegas rideshare driver for six years.
Ernesto and two others told us they’re not even going to keep their cars parked in the month leading up to the race because it’s not worth driving through the traffic.
O’Sullivan said she wishes there was a separate route reserved just for Strip employees.
For now, they say the new website is a step in the right direction for navigating the closures that will surround the resort corridor in the coming weeks and months leading up to the race.
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