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

MerlinTheGoat

MerlinTheGoat

Well-Known Member
BuddyThomas said:
What concerns?
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It was supposed to get a full track replacement during the 2008 refurb, something that was axed from the budget. And in the past decade, they installed new brakes to significantly slow it down and reduce the amount of force being put on the structure. I'm not really expecting anyone getting hurt or dying, but the procrastination and band aid fixes makes me nervous.

Disneyland's version received a full track replacement in the early 2000s because it was deemed unsafe by the government and forcibly shut down by California's government inspectors. I believe Tokyo's got a track replacement as well at some point. WDW's is older (with a more primitive coaster design as well) and the track has never been replaced. It desperately needs it. Whether people claim it's safe or not, I don't trust the thing and haven't ridden it in quite a while. IMO, it's also not even very fun to ride anymore due to the ever increasing discomfort from the wear and loss of speed due to the brakes.
 
Minthorne

Minthorne

Well-Known Member
fgmnt said:
As I pointed out in the RCID thread, the Walt Disney Company operates more miles of monorail than every other monorail service in the nation combined. There is absolutely no institutional knowledge in existence at the state level to be leveraged to make it function any better. It's not like FDOT knows how to do anything except highway expansion anyway.
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They are subcontracting the inspections to the Vogons. It’s not about institutional knowledge, it’s about the bureaucracy.
 
Casper Gutman

Casper Gutman

Well-Known Member
This seems like it very well might result in the end of the monorail.

The inspectors will come in and cite numerous, costly violations. This will be done entirely in bad faith and will have NOTHING to do with guest safety - the state’s explicit intention is to punish and control Disney. Disney now has two choices:

1) Play along in a game they can’t win. No matter what they do, how much they spend, inspectors will demand more - again, it has nothing to do with safety, it’s punishment.

2) Close the monorails, a system that current management has never been wild about and which costs a lot of money. In doing so, they can put all the blame for something unpopular they wanted to do anyway on DeSantis. This not only yokes him to an unpopular development, it redefines that entire debate and expands the audience - no longer is DeSantis attacking a “special tax district,” a confusing conflict that he can easily spin in his favor even though he is entirely in the wrong; now he becomes the governor who closed the iconic, widely beloved monorail to spite a private company. That’s a lot less esoteric.

Honestly, why would they do 1?
 
M

maxairmike

Well-Known Member
Brian said:
Question for everyone: if state oversight of the monorails was proposed on its own, and there was no RCID/parental rights legislation kerfuffle as its predicate, would you still be opposed to it?
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Depends on how it was structured. If we’re just talking straight up state oversight/regulation of a passenger rail system that has no equivalent in the state requiring specialized knowledge essentially replacing/overruling the internal expertise of the sole operator of such system with a generally acceptable record, absolutely not. If we were to have a structure that allowed cooperation with the operators and existing maintenance knowledge base that instead gave those already tasked with maintaining the system a better voice and some “push” (as well as protection) when needed to get ahead of issues before they become bigger problems, I would be very much onboard with that.
 
Andrew C

Andrew C

You know what's funny?
Casper Gutman said:
This seems like it very well might result in the end of the monorail.

The inspectors will come in and cite numerous, costly violations. This will be done entirely in bad faith and will have NOTHING to do with guest safety - the state’s explicit intention is to punish and control Disney. Disney now has two choices:

1) Play along in a game they can’t win. No matter what they do, how much they spend, inspectors will demand more - again, it has nothing to do with safety, it’s punishment.

2) Close the monorails, a system that current management has never been wild about and which costs a lot of money. In doing so, they can put all the blame for something unpopular they wanted to do anyway on DeSantis. This not only yokes him to an unpopular development, it redefines that entire debate and expands the audience - no longer is DeSantis attacking a “special tax district,” a confusing conflict that he can easily spin in his favor even though he is entirely in the wrong; now he becomes the governor who closed the iconic, widely beloved monorail to spite a private company. That’s a lot less esoteric.

Honestly, why would they do 1?
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I’m confused as to why you would attack the character of any potential inspectors. You assume they are just a bunch of crooks that cannot be trusted? They aren’t politicians.
 
Brian

Brian

Well-Known Member
Andrew C said:
I’m confused as to why you would attack the character of any potential inspectors. You assume they are just a bunch of crooks that cannot be trusted? They aren’t politicians.
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I was thinking the same thing. It's one thing to be suspicious of political appointees, such as the CFTOD board, but for the average state of Florida employee, there's a pretty good chance they're not a DeSantis fanboy, and moreover, are just trying to make an honest living.
 

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