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

Patcheslee

Well-Known Member
I normally think so too, but if Disney is doing above the minimum, than what concern would there be?

Again, doors and panels falling off monorails in guest areas is not a hypothetical. It has happened. The monorails being past their intended service date is not a hypothetical. It has happened in the last five years far too much.
Think a big question that probably can't be answered is: if FDOT were responsible for inspections in the past, would those incidents been prevented or foreseeable?
This is specifically calling out structural inspections.
 

mkt

When a paradise is lost go straight to Disney™
Premium Member
1. No one with a degree in engineering will accept a job with a starting salary of $38K. This is an entry level position that isn't necessarily doing the inspections we're talking about.
2. Note that additional education and training must be successfully completed in order for the incumbent to pass the probationary period.

The engineers and architects who designed state office buildings were PEs and NAAB certified. Only PEs in the state can sign and seal engineering designs.

I’ve mentioned this before, but the State of Florida pays horribly low for many professionals.

Legal recruiters from the state regularly call her if she’d be interested in becoming an assistant state attorney.

She’s licensed in 3 jurisdictions, plus federal courts in two states, speaks two languages fluently, and has a decade of experience.

They offered her $41k. In Miami, the most expensive city in the state, and where corruption and illegal money are so powerful that state attorneys have been murdered.
 
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Aries1975

Well-Known Member
Bureaucracy. Delay by inaction. Delay by process. Time is a valuable commodity to everyone, but the government.

The worst possible scenario is ”closed until the final report is released.”

The process of determining the qualifications of the potential inspector. The possibility of needing to develop a scope of work and going through a formal public bid process to hire a consultant to do the inspection. Scheduling the inspection; it is amazing how the assigned qualified inspector may just happen to be on family leave. Actually writing the report. Having it sit on someone’s desk. Revising. Sitting on someone’s desk longer. Once it’s through the subject matter experts, then the communications team, completely unfamiliar with the jargon, tries to wordsmith it. More revisions.

I am not questioning the integrity of the inspector. I am assuming the inspector has every intention of writing a report based on their actual findings and recommendations. I am simply stating that in the best of circumstance, government is slow. When bureaucrats are told to do stuff not in their job description, it is slower. And when they are told by those above their pay grade to put something at the bottom of the “to do” list, the pace is glacial.
 

Lilofan

Well-Known Member
I’ve mentioned this before, but the State of Florida pays horribly low for many professionals.

Legal recruiters from the state regularly call her if she’d be interested in becoming an assistant state attorney.

She’s licensed in 3 jurisdictions, plus federal courts in two states, speaks two languages fluently, and has a decade of experience.

They offered her $41k. In Miami, the most expensive city in the state, and where corruption and illegal money are so powerful that state attorneys have been murdered.
Ah , Miami, the city that had $5B of cash reserves in Federal Bank / Miami in the 1980s from so many depositing their earned income from various businesses. .
 

esskay

Well-Known Member
Moving slightly on from the initial outrage at them doing this, it does make me wonder what we'll see. If/when they go ahead with an inspection they'll presumably intentionally make the results public.

In that I'd expect we'll see the obvious mention of the fleet age/condition not being ideal - that much is obvious to anyone but not necesserily a safety issue, more a reliability one.

I do however wonder what it will say about the condition of the beam, specifically with regards to the noticable cracking along the epcot route, and whatever the known damage is near GF where the monorails still regularly have to slow to a crawl.

Maybe thats the aim here. To 'force' Disney to spend a ton of money on repairs. In which case we could end up seeing some beam replacement work in the damaged sections and/or basic repair work to existing beams.

(To be clear I'm not condoning for the state to be involved, just speculating on the outcome)
 

LAKid53

Official Member of the Girly Girl Fan Club
Premium Member
More from the Orlando Sentinel -

"A Senate committee advanced a plan Tuesday that would allow for state inspections of the attraction’s 14.7-mile monorail, which averages an estimated 150,000 passengers a day."

----

"FDOT inspects other tram systems in Florida, including the one at Orlando International Airport, said state Sen. Nick DiCeglie, R-Indian Rocks Beach, sponsor of the monorail plan.

Inspections will be scheduled at a time agreeable to both the state and Disney, he said. The measure gives the state the power to suspend service to ensure the safety and welfare of inspectors and passengers.

“If there are any safety issues, having a complete suspension is really going to be an action of last resort,” DiCeglie said."


".... compete suspension...an action of last resort..."

Odds on this happening more frequently than Senator DiCeglie states? And that they will harp on the unfortunate death of the CM in 2009 as proof Disney had been lax in maintaining the monorail?
 

John park hopper

Well-Known Member
It seems some here question the ability and integrity of State employees to perform inspections yet I bet you travel every day on State roads and bridges and think nothing about who inspects them.
"States are responsible for insuring all public highway bridges within the State are inspected in accordance with the National Bridge Inspection Standards (NBIS), including those owned by local Agencies or other public authorities (23 USC 151 and 23 CFR 650, Subpart C)".
The monorail is constructed no different than many concrete bridges. I could careless who inspects them as long as they are and maintained.
 
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queenc

New Member
This is being discussed in the RCID thread, but probably worth a thread of its own.

Disney needs to move ALL their business to another State and just pay the property tax on the land so nothing else can be built there.
 

tissandtully

Well-Known Member
It seems some here question the ability and integrity of State employees to perform inspects yet I bet you travel every day on State roads and bridges and think nothing about who inspects them.
"States are responsible for insuring all public highway bridges within the State are inspected in accordance with the National Bridge Inspection Standards (NBIS), including those owned by local Agencies or other public authorities (23 USC 151 and 23 CFR 650, Subpart C)".
The monorail is constructed no different than many concrete bridges. I could care less who inspects them as long as they are and maintained.
No one has weaponized inspectors for I-4
 

Figgy1

Well-Known Member

Lilofan

Well-Known Member

The Mom

Moderator
Premium Member
If you had a nickel every time you had to post that warning you would have a lot of nickels.
Most posters have taken a "just the facts" stance which has kept the discussion civil. But a few just can't seem to control themselves.

A big thank-you to those who are able to remain on topic and present their information in a calm, controlled manner without name calling, attacks, etc. Most posters have found the back and forth to be quite informative.
 

Chris L

New Member
I hope so. I think Disney needs a kick in the pants about some of these things, and while I get that maybe DeSantis is being petty, if all of this shines a spotlight on certain things that need to be fixed, that's a good thing in my book.
No, it isn't. The things that need to be fixed aren't so urgent to be worth legitimizing the transparent political gamesmanship. Republicans are always the ones arguing against regulation and standards. Did their core principles change? Of course they didn't. That's why these carve-outs are so specific. You want to change the way businesses like Disney are regulated, cool, I have no issue with that -- but supporting this is just giving cover for a political play. Do you really think Disney is such a horrible offender that it needs laser-targeted legislation to halt a campaign of grievous public harm without any meaningful change in the way the state otherwise approaches the regulation of industry?
 

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