News DeSantis moves to bring state safety oversight of the Walt Disney World Monorail including suspending the service for inspections

[TP2000]

I never felt unsafe on the monorail.

How about waiting on the dock for the Sailing Ship Columbia or riding Big Thunder Mountain in the front car? Ever felt unsafe there?

 

[Ayla]

Say what?

This board must have been mentioned on reddit again.

 

[LAKid53]

This board must have been mentioned on reddit again.

Is that where these brand new members come from?

 

[LAKid53]

I'm stabbing in the dark here. CFTOD's suit claims that the RCID development agreement was noticed behind the scenes and violated the intent of the Legislature or whatever. You don't have to like it but noticing on page 59D of the classifieds or comparable is still following the law and the RCID was still in effect when the agreement was made. What the Legislature did afterward was essentially file a "glitch bill" to ensure that didn't happen again. But what Disney did was lawful at that the time they did it.

Yes it was.

 

[LAKid53]

As a recorded property owner in RCID, I did not have to be notified of anything the RCID did. However according to CFTOD, i am supposed to be notified of all sorts if things. SO WHY HAVE THEY FAILED TO MAIL ME ANYTHING? Are they violating the rules they claim the RCID failed to follow? Also all the BS that Chairman Martinez keeps spouting is totally crazy. He says he only wants to do what is best for the district but then complains about eveything Disney has done. Disney has a goal of 0 carbon footprint. Disney want to eliminate all waste and recycle almost everything. They recycle all wasye water and use it for irrigation. WDW is the most envirinmental development in Florida. Yes the BS board complains WDW is on its way to 100% solar and renewable energy at lower costs than FPL. YES, THE DISTRIBUTION COSTS MAY BE A LITTLE HIGH BUT THAT IS BECAUSE THE SYSYEM IS BUILT TO PREVENT POWER OUTAGES. Who wants outages when you are on vacation?

The board is complaining that the two solar farms Duke Energy built for them is a BAD thing? They're still expanding the one along 429.

Disney's goal of going solar should be applauded, not criticized. I believe they have enough capacity to operate 2 parks with solar.

Many of my neighbors in Horizon West have solar panels on their roof. Because those pesky tropical cyclones can result in no electricity. And you've not really experienced Florida unless you've been without power for a week in August.

I'm curious if any members have stock in FPL. Which is also building solar farms along I-10 in Suwanee County.

 

[Rich Brownn]

You mean like those in depth inspections of the PIU pedestrian bridge that collapsed or maybe the inspections of the Surfside condo? Yeah, I feel a LOT safer now…

And of course the Icon Park drop tower.....

 

[Rich Brownn]

I never felt unsafe on the monorail.

Thats cause you never drove them

 

[Ayla]

Is that where these brand new members come from?

Some, yes.

 

[danlb_2000]

How about waiting on the dock for the Sailing Ship Columbia or riding Big Thunder Mountain in the front car? Ever felt unsafe there?

Nope.

 

[TP2000]

Nope.

Me either, until people were killed doing just that.

In December, 1998 two people were killed while waiting on the dock for the Sailing Ship Columbia to open its gates (manager docked the boat wrong causing the heavy metal cleat to fly into the crowd with explosive force, decapitating two people and cutting off the manager's own foot that landed 100 yards away). Several others on the dock only had minor injuries, but were traumatized at being splattered with blood and brain material.

In September, 2003, one person was killed and several more severely injured when axle on a Big Thunder loco, which had been making odd noise on earlier runs, finally snapped at a mild speed as the train went through a dark cave and sent shrapnel flying back into the faces of the riders directly behind the locomotive. Several other riders who were only mildly injured or completely uninjured became severely traumatized when the worklights were turned on and the destroyed and dismembered bodies became visible to them.

The point? You don't have to be going 60 miles per hour up high on a monorail beam to be injured by poor maintenance and shoddy CM training and management. You can just be sitting on a bench on the Frontierland dock watching the ducks and still be killed or maimed by unsafe operation of heavy machinery near you. Those two Disneyland accidents caused heavy and highly regulated oversight of all theme park rides in California from the 2000's onward, something Florida does not have. Yet.

The more oversight and extra sets of eyes there is on the operation of heavy, dangerous machinery, the better.

 

[LittleBuford]

Those two Disneyland accidents caused heavy and highly regulated oversight of all theme park rides in California from the 2000's onward, something Florida does not have. Yet.

Nor will it have such “highly regulated oversight of theme part rides”, because only Disney will be subject to these new inspections. That should tell you something about the motivation behind this move, which is entirely ideological and vindictive.

 

[TP2000]

Nor will it have such “highly regulated oversight of theme part rides”, because only Disney will be subject to these new inspections. That should tell you something about the motivation behind this move, which is entirely ideological and vindictive.

As I understand it, this current legislation only involves the WDW Monorail. And it brings it under state oversight by the same Florida DOT team that regulates and inspects other elevated mass-transit systems in Florida, like the Miami MetroMover, Tampa airport SkyConnect, MCO Peoplemover, etc.

No other theme park in the state of Florida has such a transit system. Busch Gardens Tampa used to, but they closed it decades ago. So WDW's monorail goes under the same jurisdiction as other elevated rail systems in Florida.

The legislation for general theme park ride inspections didn't make it out of Tallahasee committee this session, which is why I typed the word "Yet.". But it's bubbling along there in Tallahassee, and I would strongly support that legislation to regulate theme park rides a la' California if I was a Florida resident/voter.

Heck, as a potential future visitor to WDW and passenger on their ride vehicles, I would still support that legislation.

 

[Trauma]

So when do these inspections start ?

 

[danlb_2000]

Me either, until people were killed doing just that.

In December, 1998 two people were killed while waiting on the dock for the Sailing Ship Columbia to open its gates (manager docked the boat wrong causing the heavy metal cleat to fly into the crowd with explosive force, decapitating two people and cutting off the manager's own foot that landed 100 yards away). Several others on the dock only had minor injuries, but were traumatized at being splattered with blood and brain material.

In September, 2003, one person was killed and several more severely injured when axle on a Big Thunder loco, which had been making odd noise on earlier runs, finally snapped at a mild speed as the train went through a dark cave and sent shrapnel flying back into the faces of the riders directly behind the locomotive. Several other riders who were only mildly injured or completely uninjured became severely traumatized when the worklights were turned on and the destroyed and dismembered bodies became visible to them.

The point? You don't have to be going 60 miles per hour up high on a monorail beam to be injured by poor maintenance and shoddy CM training and management. You can just be sitting on a bench on the Frontierland dock watching the ducks and still be killed or maimed by unsafe operation of heavy machinery near you. Those two Disneyland accidents caused heavy and highly regulated oversight of all theme park rides in California from the 2000's onward, something Florida does not have. Yet.

The more oversight and extra sets of eyes there is on the operation of heavy, dangerous machinery, the better.

No amount of inspections are going to make anything perfectly safe. I might welcome more inspections if I though they were being down out of genuine concern for guest safety, but we all know that is not the case.

 

[TP2000]

No amount of inspections are going to make anything perfectly safe. I might welcome more inspections if I though they were being down out of genuine concern for guest safety, but we all know that is not the case.

Do you think the Florida DOT team who currently inspects the Miami MetroMover or Tampa SkyConnect won't apply the same standards to the WDW Monorail?

 

[danlb_2000]

As I understand it, this current legislation only involves the WDW Monorail. And it brings it under state oversight by the same Florida DOT team that regulates and inspects other elevated mass-transit systems in Florida, like the Miami MetroMover, Tampa airport SkyConnect, MCO Peoplemover, etc.

No other theme park in the state of Florida has such a transit system. Busch Gardens Tampa used to, but they closed it decades ago. So WDW's monorail goes under the same jurisdiction as other elevated rail systems in Florida.

The legislation for general theme park ride inspections didn't make it out of Tallahasee committee this session, which is why I typed the word "Yet.". But it's bubbling along there in Tallahassee, and I would strongly support that legislation to regulate theme park rides a la' California if I was a Florida resident/voter.

Heck, as a potential future visitor to WDW and passenger on their ride vehicles, I would still support that legislation.

How about the Hogwarts Express? It is a elevated mass-transit system.

 

[danlb_2000]

Do you think the Florida DOT team who currently inspects the Miami MetroMover or Tampa SkyConnect won't apply the same standards to the WDW Monorail?

We have covered this ground a hundred times already. Disney has a great safety record and there didn't seem to be any concern about the lack of state inspections until the governor got mad at Disney and all of a sudden it's a problem. This tells you everything you need to know.

 

[Trauma]

How about the Hogwarts Express? It is an elevated mass-transit system.

I would call it a roller coaster.

 

[TP2000]

How about the Hogwarts Express? It is a elevated mass-transit system.

You could also make the same argument for the WDW Railroad, or the DAK train to Conservation Station. But for now those are all still classified as theme park rides, because they require a theme park ticket to ride them.

The legislation covering the broader theme park ride regulations didn't make it out of committee in Tallahassee, from two articles I read recently. But it's moving through the legislative sausage making process and will be something to discuss soon.

I think it's long past time that Florida theme park rides were as regulated and inspected as California theme park rides. It would have been nice to see WDW lead the charge on this a decade ago and ask Florida to use the California model years ago, but TDO failed to do that. They should have gotten ahead of the story after seeing 20 years of ride regulation in use at Disneyland.

 

[LittleBuford]

The legislation for general theme park ride inspections didn't make it out of Tallahasee committee this session, which is why I typed the word "Yet.".

There is no such “general” legislation. It would be limited to Walt Disney World, leaving Universal and SeaWorld free to continue carrying out their own inspections.

What do you make of that?