Any Monorail Expansion Updates?

[Bulldog1653]

TimeTrip, you have some interesting thoughts about the run to the airport. When I was there in September, someone (I think a monorail guy) mentioned something about problems with the city and other parks.
Running a monorail to the airport would be ok but of course places like Sea World feel that it gives Disney an unfair advantage. Disney basically told them, "Hey we have no problem with you having part of this. We will allow track usage to your park from the airport. All you have to do is pay for your part of it and share upkeep costs."
Now about the transfer issue. hop on/hop off can be nice but what good is it when the buses don't show up when they're supposed to? Sure, the monorail raises the same argument. How about a compromise? What if there were stations built at the hotels and one monorail handled 4 or more at a time? Capacity being what it is, I think that a move like that cold be beneficial.
As far as a perfect model, that is next to impossible. What is perfect to some is totally wrong to others.

 

[Moustronaut]

President Obama for Monorail Expansion

I walked by the TV today in the break room at my offive when President Obama was announcing his high speed rail plan. I only caught a breif bit of it when he was talking about how in the long run it was less expensive to build rails than to build more road, would reduce traffic, reduce emissions, etc.

Immediately thought of the whole Monorail vs Bus debate! :ROFLOL:

Hi, I'm Jason, and I'm a Walt Disney World-aholic.

 

[goodtimes5286]

I walked by the TV today in the break room at my offive when President Obama was announcing his high speed rail plan. I only caught a breif bit of it when he was talking about how in the long run it was less expensive to build rails than to build more road, would reduce traffic, reduce emissions, etc.

Immediately thought of the whole Monorail vs Bus debate! :ROFLOL:

Hi, I'm Jason, and I'm a Walt Disney World-aholic.

Just further information that points to Obama being full of crap. Dwon here in FL they were going to add a high speed rail, so we voted on it as a state and the response was overwelming, like 90% for.

A year or two later people were shocked to hear nothing about this bullet train connecting NoFl to SoFl and then the legislature brought up another vote for the same issue. But this time we would have to double sales tax or institute a state income tax, something rediculas, b/c they figured the cost of the bullet train just in florida and it was AMAZINGLY high like uber times the normal year budget JUST to build.

So yes obama's full of crap, oh and in class today I heard that the national debt has trippled (but i think my teacher was off, I think that he has more then trippled the deficit vs bush or something like that b/c i doubt hes added on TRILLIONS to the deficit so far), since obama came into office. So higher deficit, him saying we're gonna have another year of the economy getting worse, he goes to basketball games, tv shows, doesnt do the voice for disneys animatronics........so what did we vote for him anyways?:shrug:

Now back from the tangent, yes the monerail is better in the LONG run, but its TERRIBLE in the short run, hence why walt built one and we cant now....SHAREHOLDERS! If you want a monerail, just buy the controling shares in disney and sacrifice most of the companys 1st or 2nd year dividends to build it. After 2 or 3 years, the lack of busses, bus drivers, bus matinence, gas, consumer happyness, etc will add up and disney will see more visitors to there world AND savings.

Problem = shareholders, truth = never gonna happen (unless theres a bid for under 100 million to connect EVERY park and hotel, i bet disney would spring for that :animwink

 

[hardcard]

I find all the 'know it alls' here hilarious.. regardless of personal and public opinion, a monorail expansion on the 'large' scale was planned for WDW, it was slated (internally) to begin construction in 2002.. Unfortunately, Sept 11, 2001 happened.. and the subsequent tourism drop, etc.... What happened to these plans? are they just indefinately shelved at this point?

 

[Bulldog1653]

Hardcard, that was the expansion I originally mentioned. I suspect that it's been suspended until this recession ends.
When/ if it does happen though, I think that it will open a lot of eyes.

 

[goodtimes5286]

I find all the 'know it alls' here hilarious.. regardless of personal and public opinion, a monorail expansion on the 'large' scale was planned for WDW, it was slated (internally) to begin construction in 2002.. Unfortunately, Sept 11, 2001 happened.. and the subsequent tourism drop, etc.... What happened to these plans? are they just indefinately shelved at this point?

Hardcard, that was the expansion I originally mentioned. I suspect that it's been suspended until this recession ends.
When/ if it does happen though, I think that it will open a lot of eyes.

OMG REALLY??? (sorry i wasnt a part of the community back then). WTH, that was the damn terrorists plan all along!!

Oh yeah we'll hit the trade towers, disneys tourism will drop b/c no one will want to fly, and the monerail will NEVER be built, moo who ha ha ha ha ha :drevil:

 

[krankenstein]

 

[kingdaniel97]

The price for the Seattle monorail included the purchase of right-of-way property. Businesses and land would have to be bought for stations and maintenance yards for the 14 mile system. All at inner city prices which is not an issue at WDW. The Seattle project was a government bungle at the it's best.

Also the price of buses vs monorail isn't quite apples to apples. You don't have to build the road the buses run on into the price of the bus. But maintenance on 400 diesel buses vs 12 trains all electric non-polluting is just one of a zillion factors. Figuring the price is very complex and calculating the value to the guest is harder.

The growing problem for Disney is too many buses in congested areas. If anyone has been to DTD during any high season evening, you'll find Buena Vista Blvd is virtually gridlocked with Disney buses.

Monorails are best at moving large crowds from A to B with ground transportation (buses,taxis & cars) feeding out to local venues.

TDL has a fantastic monorail with walk-through trains, which stops at the parks,hotels and rail station. I guess it was worth it there.

I hoped I'd have another chance to use this!

 

[Sigmundooze]

Biggest reason to upgrade monorail over buses...Lovebugs love bus stops! yuck...

 

[Timon]

Biggest reason to upgrade monorail over buses...Lovebugs love bus stops! yuck...

BINGO! I hate those bugs. FYI Next month is Love Bug season. Run for it!

 

[joel_maxwell]

Every now and then someone posts something they heard from a Bus Driver or Monorail Operator about expanding the Monorail but I think its relatively known that it'll never happen

I about beat down the bus driver i witnessed say that old ridiculous story about the system originally was going through the S&D.

:brick:

 

[Uncle Lupe]

The Monorail must expand at all costs, and so must the threads.

 

[Master Yoda]

The Monorail must expand at all costs, and so must the threads.

No on both accounts.

 

[Tubes]

Considering how empty the Epcot monorail usually is in comparison to the actual capacity of the park, expanding the monorail to service HS and AK seems like a needlessly expensive enterprise.

However, I'm all for making a PeopleMover there. Any takers?

 

[Glasgow]

It'd probably be cheaper to build canals to all of the parks/resorts ..

 

[krankenstein]

It's probably cheaper to run buses... :lookaroun

 

[kramden88]

Hmmm? Where have all the visionaries gone?

Unfortunately he died in 1966. If he were still around there would be a monorail network to every park and hotel.

 

[Bulldog1653]

A people mover might be interesting but I think it would probably be filled to capacity to Animal Kingdom. Hollywood Studios might be a different story.
As I mentioned earlier, I was there back in September (and I'm going again this year :sohappy and clearly remember how crowded the buses were and how long it took to get to Animal Kingdom.
A monorail run to Animal Kingdom would be a MAJOR convenience. Think about this logically. If there was a monorail from the Ticket Center (Yes you would have to add a fourth platform to make it work) directly to the Animal Kingdom, then they would be able to run it at about 60 MPH-ish because of the long distance involved. The design could be almost identical to how EPCOT's is set up. It could go into a gradual loop over the park and unload at a station where the buses currently unload.
Remember that the platforms for the monorail are elevated so it would be very easy to still have ground transportation.
There was a point raised about people not wanting to transfer from one monorail/bus/boat/train to another and I agree to some extent. Here's something to think about; if you're at Hollywood studios and you want to go to the Magic Kingdom (for example), then you need to get on a bus, go back to your hotel (if you're staying on property), get off the bus, and wait who knows how long for another bus going where you want. That would be a major reason for expanding the monorail system.

 

[kramden88]

A people mover might be interesting but I think it would probably be filled to capacity to Animal Kingdom. Hollywood Studios might be a different story.
As I mentioned earlier, I was there back in September (and I'm going again this year :sohappy and clearly remember how crowded the buses were and how long it took to get to Animal Kingdom.
A monorail run to Animal Kingdom would be a MAJOR convenience. Think about this logically. If there was a monorail from the Ticket Center (Yes you would have to add a fourth platform to make it work) directly to the Animal Kingdom, then they would be able to run it at about 60 MPH-ish because of the long distance involved. The design could be almost identical to how EPCOT's is set up. It could go into a gradual loop over the park and unload at a station where the buses currently unload.
Remember that the platforms for the monorail are elevated so it would be very easy to still have ground transportation.
There was a point raised about people not wanting to transfer from one monorail/bus/boat/train to another and I agree to some extent. Here's something to think about; if you're at Hollywood studios and you want to go to the Magic Kingdom (for example), then you need to get on a bus, go back to your hotel (if you're staying on property), get off the bus, and wait who knows how long for another bus going where you want. That would be a major reason for expanding the monorail system.

You're absolutely right, AK is a huge pain to reach and with those buses traveling all that distance and getting only 4mpg I think the long-term cost savings would makes anyone consider a monorail system. The problem then becomes: if we're going to have a monorail go all the way out there, why not have it stop at AK Lodge as well? Then you get into logistical issues because people going from the hotel to AK would have to go all they way around the loop to get to the park. Either that or make a single track with a passing zone, which becomes complicated bus would also save about half the money in track.

 

[DonaldDoleWhip]

There was a point raised about people not wanting to transfer from one monorail/bus/boat/train to another and I agree to some extent. Here's something to think about; if you're at Hollywood studios and you want to go to the Magic Kingdom (for example), then you need to get on a bus, go back to your hotel (if you're staying on property), get off the bus, and wait who knows how long for another bus going where you want. That would be a major reason for expanding the monorail system.

Or you could take a bus from DHS to the TTC, CR, Poly, or GF, and catch the monorail from there.