The Las Vegas Monorail isn’t successful because it isn’t finished, Richard N. Velotta says.

IS the Las Vegas Monorail back on track, now that financing has been secured for a piece of its planned expansion?

Probably not.

But the fact that the privately held company has a plan to build a station at Sands Avenue to provide access to the under-construction MSG Sphere at The Venetian — and financing in place to build it — provides new hope for the 3.9-mile, zero-emissions transit system.

If nothing else, it should for at least a few years quiet the critics who want to spend the reserves set aside to dismantle the system in the event it completely failed.

The system has foundered because there aren’t enough riders buying tickets to sustain operating costs, let alone pay for capital improvements. It filed for bankruptcy protection in 2010, and after emerging, ridership revenue has fallen every year since 2016.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The Las Vegas Monorail isn’t as successful as it could be because it isn’t finished yet.

The new Sands Avenue station won’t go far toward reaching completion, but it sets the system up for more ridership once it and the sphere-shaped, 17,500-seat performance venue being developed by The Madison Square Garden Company is complete. The new station is expected to be engineered into the pedestrian bridge being designed to move people from The Venetian, Palazzo and the Sands Expo and Convention Center to the MSG Sphere. It will cost an estimated $13 million to complete.

The system would get closer to completion if the milelong extension to the south from MGM Grand to Mandalay Bay — a drop-off point for people attending games and events at Allegiant Stadium — can be engineered and built. That is expected to cost between $90 million and $100 million.

And everybody knows the big enchilada would be finding a way to somehow

VELOTTA