New Disneyland Parking Garage and Transportation Hub

[nevol]

There were some very good points about over dependence on cash toll booths and single price car admissions, regardless of number of passengers. But I think one important component was under-addressed: APs. The current structure of AP admissions is unsustainable. Disney needs to find a better model to regulate the number of APs in the parks. With all the computing power available today, there has to be a way to better regulate attendance. If Disney offered limited access to the parks by reservation in peak periods, they could make attendance more predictable and more controlled. If my pass allowed me limited admissions during certain peak periods, and if I could link it to family and friends like FP at WDW, they could get a better handle on attendance. Linking parking to the number of passengers could also cut down on single driver parking.

My biggest objection, however, is the lack of transportation or moving sidewalks between the Eastern Gateway and the Esplanade. This is just cheap. Universal can do it in Orlando--why not Disney? The Westcot masterplan referenced upthread shows peoplemovers from both the east and west parking structures. The current tram model from M&F is outdated and inefficient. What is needed is a system that loads at-grade with automated doors and sufficient capacity for wheelchairs, ECVs, and strollers. Current trams are extremely inadequate and beneath Disney standard. I think Disney is being shortsighted. Why tire your customers out before they even walk through the gate--they're only going to get more tired, hotter, and crankier as the day goes on?

Allowing people to reserve/schedule a visit in advance, AP or otherwise, isn't just smart, its probably something they will be rushing to implement when star wars land opens. Universal already does this. When I bought my AP, I had to pick a day to activate it; it was a specific day-ticket that became an AP. Despite paying for it, if I missed that day, it wouldn't have worked The park is near capacity often enough that it wouldn't be hard to initiate such a system. Condition everybody for reserving their tickets, and out of towners as well. That way, no more will people show up only to find that one gate or another is closed.

M+F trams are so inefficient. Nothing is worse than waiting for a tram to show up just to leave disneyland. At least on the front end, security lines move slow enough that you don't have to wait more than 1 or 2 trams (you've already done your waiting). Spending a half hour in security lines and a half hour in line to buy tickets though is a complete disaster. Last week I arrived at 9:45 and wasn't in the parks until 11 and they were basically as crowded as they would get for the day. If people are standing around in line for security, or trams, or wasting time simply sitting on the trams, then..
a. have cast members walking around with ipads like In-N-Out burger selling park tickets! Think about it! People are standing around doing absolutely nothing for 30 minutes while other people go through security. A cast member could easily walk through the line and sell tickets, so that the time spent in line for security is the ONLY line during the arrival sequence!, or
b. have ticket dispensers on the trams from M+F, with a guide/CM in each car to answer questions or something. Or just build more security gates and ticket booths. It is just crazy to have so few ticket booths serving a parking garage as large as Mickey and Friends.
c. If they want to phase out ticket booths, or encourage purchasing tickets online and the download of the disneyland ap, then ENCOURAGE THIS BEHAVIOR WHILE WE ARE IN LINE FOR SECURITY WITH NOTHING TO DO! Put up some signage! It is actually ridiculous that you have to walk into the front gate, following an hour of downtime, to get a guidemap that with size 6 font tells you to "get the disneyland app." Especially if they are trying to sell maxpass, stick signs out front where people will see them and they don't interrupt show. people have all the time in the world to download the ap, set up an account, buy tickets, and purchase maxpass while they bake in the sun for Mickey and Friends security. It would make the experience more productive and thus feel shorter. Once we've wasted so much time and are entering the frenzy and stimulation that is disneyland, we don't want to distract ourselves from the show or waste any more time looking at our phones and typing email addresses and credit card numbers etc.

 

[flynnibus]

Disney should stop selling included parking for one thing...
Disney should give a discount if you have 4 or more in your car...

People shouldn't expect to be 10mins door to gate.

 

[nevol]

Disney should stop selling included parking for one thing...
Disney should give a discount if you have 4 or more in your car...

People shouldn't expect to be 10mins door to gate.

All three are true. But Disney can also consider ways of streamlining the arrival sequence to their parks; making them more comfortable, efficient, even profitable.

I don't expect the temporary (looking?) security structures to be the "Welcome to the Disneyland Resort" that guests see for the rest of time, but I'm also not seeing movement on their replacement. Having an elaborate eastern gateway entrance and leaving Mickey and Friends, the larger lot of the two, with a sad music festival staging truss structure isn't ideal. And when I told my friends that the security gate was temporary/new, it made sense to them; but they then assumed that the entire tram system to DTD was temporary as well, and I just don't believe that that level of inefficiency and a level of show that is mistaken by guests as being temporary is something we or Disney should blindly accept. While so many guests are AP's who don't need to visit a ticket booth, demand for queuing up at ticket booths could very easily be offset with more of the process taking place earlier or digitally, where educating guests through signage while they stand around with nothing to do awaiting their security check could really be beneficial for everybody.

We as fans and APs have tons of time to plan for Disneyland trips and know so much knowledge of the parks and their operations that when any changes take place, we can get a handle on it pretty quickly. It is hard to imagine but entirely true that so many millions of people visit the parks with no prior knowledge. For those folks, it would be tremendously helpful to see park maps and scheduling, information about ticket options and maxpass, aps, etc as early as possible.

 

[TP2000]

My biggest objection, however, is the lack of transportation or moving sidewalks between the Eastern Gateway and the Esplanade. This is just cheap. Universal can do it in Orlando--why not Disney?

Agreed! That's my main beef with the Eastern Gateway plan; the moving sidewalks that Micechat said they cut out of the plans before it was announced last year.

I can only hope that when Disney forces Anaheim (or vice versa) to address the Eastern Gateway issue, and I think that's coming up soon this fall, that they will return to the table with an improved plan that adds back the moving sidewalks and makes the skybridge look more aesthetically pleasing.

This is definitely NOT Disney's best work. We all know they can do better!

 

[TP2000]

By the way, I love that the Disney Parks Blog still has their original post up from a year ago that says the Eastern Gateway is "Coming in 2018!"

https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2016/08/new-disneyland-resort-eastern-gateway-coming-in-2018/

Oops! Even Mickey Mouse can't fight city hall.

 

[Curious Constance]

Agreed! That's my main beef with the Eastern Gateway plan; the moving sidewalks that Micechat said they cut out of the plans before it was announced last year.

I can only hope that when Disney forces Anaheim (or vice versa) to address the Eastern Gateway issue, and I think that's coming up soon this fall, that they will return to the table with an improved plan that adds back the moving sidewalks and makes the skybridge look more aesthetically pleasing.

This is definitely NOT Disney's best work. We all know they can do better!

But the Mickey silhouettes are so magical!

 

[Ismael Flores]

Agreed! That's my main beef with the Eastern Gateway plan; the moving sidewalks that Micechat said they cut out of the plans before it was announced last year.

I can only hope that when Disney forces Anaheim (or vice versa) to address the Eastern Gateway issue, and I think that's coming up soon this fall, that they will return to the table with an improved plan that adds back the moving sidewalks and makes the skybridge look more aesthetically pleasing.

This is definitely NOT Disney's best work. We all know they can do better!

Just out of curiosity what do people expect this bridge to look like? Doesn't seem bad, it's simple and doesn't over power the rest of the area. Anything more elaborate would seem to clash with the rest of the structures around it.

To me it looks like they wanted to accomplish the same thing the did with the western side DTD bridge
Guests walking on it won't realize they are crossing a bridge because no views out into street and the amounts of landscape will make it blend into its surrounding area.
The only issues seems to be what's under it when you walk by on the sidewalk.

 

[Ismael Flores]

As for the moving walkways, I guess I'm the only one that does see the need for them. I guess that after seeing so many in place with just recently in Dubhai I see how inefficient they are.
They have moving walkways from the monorail system to the Burj tower in Dubhai. It is a much farther walk then anything would be here in Anaheim.
The amount of people using the moving walkways compared to just walking in the enclosed tunnels was minimal. The time they were in used was during heavy traffic and all they did was cause back ups and this is in a country where people have certain eddicates when using moving walkways and escalators. If you are good big to stop you stand on the right to allow guests walking faster to pass. Same goes for places like Singapore and China.
This allows the moving walkways to have a constant flow of people and not back up.

I could just imagine what it would be like when thousands of guests are leaving Anaheim at one time with strollers. Sorry but it only takes one person to stop in the middle of the moving walkway to create A huge back up. It would be like the 91 freeway after someone bumps are car on the opposite side of the freeway and everyone needs to stop to look

 

[TP2000]

(And later we can discuss the wide popularity of flyaway from the Irvine transportation center to LAX.)

Ah, the LAX Flyaway buses! It sounded like such a great idea, but the reality was miserable. The Irvine route was using taxpayer money to subsidize each passenger by $21 each way. The buses were chronically late, dirty and poorly run. After opening with a bang, the route became so unpopular that the bus contractor running the route declared bankruptcy, even though taxpayers had shelled out millions of dollars in subsidies for the four years it operated.

I did the Irvine Flyaway bus exactly once. It was dirty and gross even though the bus was nearly empty, and 30 minutes late. Never again.

The remaining Flyaway buses are still plagued by delays and bad service, with millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies each year. TV station CBS2 did an investigative series on Flyway in 2015 and tracked most buses on the Hollywood line running an average of more than an hour late for their scheduled pickups, with passengers stranded and missing their flights or banding together to hail Ubers to get to LAX in time. The prepaid Flyaway tickets are not refundable, so you are just out the money when your bus fails to show up and you hail an Uber in a panic.

Now imagine a series of similarly subsidized SoCal shuttles trying to move 25,000 people per day to/from Disneyland.

Just out of curiosity what do people expect this bridge to look like? Doesn't seem bad, it's simple and doesn't over power the rest of the area. Anything more elaborate would seem to clash with the rest of the structures around it.

To me it looks like they wanted to accomplish the same thing the did with the western side DTD bridge
Guests walking on it won't realize they are crossing a bridge because no views out into street and the amounts of landscape will make it blend into its surrounding area.
The only issues seems to be what's under it when you walk by on the sidewalk.

The proposed skybridge isn't bad, but it's not good either. The difference between the Harbor skybridge and the Downtown Disney bridge is that no one really sees the Downtown Disney bridge except cars, and the sides are a heavily landscaped canyon. There are no pedestrians inhabiting that space and much less traffic, unlike Harbor Blvd. which is crawling with pedestrians and many more cars and buses.

There just has to be a more elegant and more aesthetically pleasing skybridge design than the one Disney came up with. Disney's design team has been in hiding for the past year once the local businesses raised holy hell over the Eastern Gateway proposal. I wonder what they've been redesigning and sketching in the meantime to try and win over the locals?

 

[nevol]

Disney's design team has been in hiding for the past year once the local businesses raised holy hell over the Eastern Gateway proposal. I wonder what they've been redesigning and sketching in the meantime to try and win over the locals?

Wow. I mean, I knew a year had gone by, but it still elicits shock to hear it again. I hope they have spent that time wisely because the clock is ticking.

 

[nevol]

Santa Ana Freeway reconstruction approaching Disney Way interchange - 1997

Is it just me or does the 5 still look like this on the way to Disneyland from LA? Just a few miles north? Still swerves dramatically from older to newer freeway sections. Construction continues.

 

[TP2000]

Is it just me or does the 5 still look like this on the way to Disneyland from LA? Just a few miles north? Still swerves dramatically from older to newer freeway sections. Construction continues.

Orange County has had a dramatically different investment in its freeways than LA for the past 25 years, thanks to Measure M tax dollars and a focus on freeways and roads. The Santa Ana Freeway was widened and modernized from San Clemente to the LA County border, amongst many other freeway widening projects across Orange County.

Los Angeles County has done almost no work on its freeway system since the 1970's, as anyone who has ever driven over the Orange County border can tell just by looking out their windshield.

After sticking their heads in the sand for two decades, LA County was basically shamed into expanding the I-5 corridor from the Orange County line, and that work began last year. LA County is only taking their expansion to the 605 San Gabriel Freeway, however. But when it's completed at least it won't be such a horrific crunch at the county line, going from Orange County's 16 lanes of I-5 freeway to LA's 6 lanes of I-5 freeway.

 

[TP2000]

As for the moving walkways, I guess I'm the only one that does not see the need for them. I guess that after seeing so many in place with just recently in Dubhai I see how inefficient they are.

The thing about the moving sidewalks is that it can be an option for people. Much like airports, you don't have to use them if you don't want to, or if they look too congested. You can always move over to the regular pathway and walk. And a big part of them is that there's that option and that visual of choice; Disney at least tried to save your aching feet at the end of the night. Even if it was just on the bridge portion and long walkway on the Disneyland side of Harbor.

There also have been some new designs and technology applied to the concept, with moving sidewalks now able to make turns and transform into escalators.

You would need to have wider moving sidewalks, likely a custom designed and high capacity operation, not the narrow off-the-shelf versions that most American airports have. Although, when American Airlines added a narrow moving sidewalk to their terminal at LAX in 1963, it was quite a sensation. They dubbed it the Astroway, and American Airlines had Lucille Ball dedicate it by bursting through a paper sign placed over the moving sidewa... um, Astroway.

Here's Miss Ball mere moments after she burst triumphantly through the paper sign of the new Astroway. I hereby nominate @Curious Constance to perform this important ceremonial duty for us on the Harbor skybridge in 2019.

 

[Curious Constance]

The thing about the moving sidewalks is that it can be an option for people. Much like airports, you don't have to use them if you don't want to, or if they look too congested. You can always move over to the regular pathway and walk. And a big part of them is that there's that option and that visual of choice; Disney at least tried to save your aching feet at the end of the night. Even if it was just on the bridge portion and long walkway on the Disneyland side of Harbor.

There also have been some new designs and technology applied to the concept, with moving sidewalks now able to make turns and transform into escalators.

You would need to have wider moving sidewalks, likely a custom designed and high capacity operation, not the narrow off-the-shelf versions that most American airports have. Although, when American Airlines added a narrow moving sidewalk to their terminal at LAX in 1963, it was quite a sensation. They dubbed it the Astroway, and American Airlines had Lucille Ball dedicate it by bursting through a paper sign placed over the moving sidewa... um, Astroway.

Here's Miss Ball mere moments after she burst triumphantly through the paper sign of the new Astroway. I hereby nominate @Curious Constance to perform this important ceremonial duty for us on the Harbor skybridge in 2019.

That would be the buzzkill of the century lol

 

[nevol]

The world's widest moving walkways to accommodate the hummer h1 sized strollers. It would have to move in one direction only, like the express lane of some freeways that close and change direction based on which direction is seeing higher congestion; toward disneyland in the morning, away from disneyland from 5pm onward or whenever that switch happens.

 

[D.Silentu]

It's probably time to establish some rules for those too. Admittedly I know very little about strollers, save for the congestion they create, but I imagine a set of blocks on the ground at each parking lot and plenty of signage. If the wheels of your rig can't pass between the blocks, then they won't be admitted. Of course, I'm sure Disney would be happy to rent you an appropriately sized stroller.

 

[TP2000]

The world's widest moving walkways to accommodate the hummer h1 sized strollers. It would have to move in one direction only, like the express lane of some freeways that close and change direction based on which direction is seeing higher congestion; toward disneyland in the morning, away from disneyland from 5pm onward or whenever that switch happens.

You could have three walkways that flex by reversing direction as the day unfolds. All three inbound from 7am to 10am, two inbound from 10am to 2pm, two outbound from 2pm to 9pm, and all three outbound from fireworks to Midnight.

 

[TP2000]

That would be the buzzkill of the century lol

Oh, come on, you'd do a fabulous job! And it would be hysterical, and I know your kids would love it. Just don't forget your white gloves, please.

 

[sirstude]

Seems like sometime during all this conversations, someone mentioned that Anaheim wanted to get the pedestrian traffic off of Harbor and was using the Disney project to accomplish it. Now that the neighbors are fighting back, that issue seems to have dropped off the radar. Or was I just mistaken on what I remembered?

 

[Curious Constance]

Oh, come on, you'd do a fabulous job! And it would be hysterical, and I know your kids would love it. Just don't forget your white gloves, please.

My daughter would be mortified and my son would be itching to get to the parks but, now that I think about it, I'm sure Bob would be there, so to hell with them!