Former Wet 'n Wild Site

ryguy

Well-Known Member
I feel like the city should have forced them to build a monorail or alternate transportation method other than buses. The traffic in that area and Sand lake is a mess. Who we kidding I-Drive is a mess, there really should be a monorail down the center from the outlets to convention center. Disappointing that Orlando isn't on the forefront of transportation technology. Orlando is not too far off from being LA, in regards to traffic nightmares.
 

UCF

Active Member
Orlando is to spread out for mass transit or at least clever mass transit.

One thing that should be done but won't is a some sort of train line from the airport to WDW and Universal. Just those two places are millions of vehicles on the the roads a year. Rental cars, buses, cabs, Uber etc. etc. Problem is the government can't pick favorites for large transportation projects. Some sort of rail or mono rail system from the airport would help traffic a lot I think. The exact stops I'm not sure of since I don't know Orlando that well. Also you have the problem of what transport business you will putting out of business or taking most of their sales.
The new airport terminal is supposed to have a slot for 2 local rail systems... One was proposed to be a maglev route to Florida Mall, and then to the convention center/I-Drive, and a potential phase 2 to Lake Nona and Disney... the city approved the proposal but the airport rejected it due to concerns with impacts to rental car revenue that would not be covered by the proposal and the maglev technology being unproven, and the county said they'd only allow it if it has an airport connection. There is still a desire to build at least part of that route within the county so there is some small hope in the distant future.
Maglev-route-map.jpg
 

JT3000

Well-Known Member
There's several reasons this will never happen -

1. No one's building a rail line to the parks unless they pay for it.
2. Disney won't pay for it. They already have their own transportation to and from the airport, and they like to think they should be gifted stuff like this at the tax payer's expense.
3. The airport & several other business won't allow it, as it makes taxis and rental cars obsolete (to a large degree.)
4. Disney, who would probably be responsible for the largest portion of the line's ridership, doesn't play well with others. They've already shot down a similar proposal because it dared to go anywhere besides just WDW & the airport. So even if the other issues were resolved, your best case scenario is a rail line that excludes the area's biggest attraction.
 
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UCF

Active Member
There's several reasons this will never happen -

1. No one's building a rail line to the parks unless they pay for it.
2. Disney won't pay for it. They already have their own transportation to and from the airport, and they like to think they should be gifted stuff like this at the tax payer's expense.
3. The airport & rental services won't allow it, as it makes rental cars obsolete.
4. Disney, who would probably be responsible for the largest portion of the line's ridership, doesn't play well with others. They've already shot down a similar proposal because it dared to go anywhere besides just WDW & the airport. So even if the other issues were resolved, your best case scenario is a rail line that excludes the area's biggest attraction.
1. The proposal was for it to be completely privately funded.
2. Nobody has proposed Disney/Universal pay for any of the proposals... they know thats a no go.
3. That was the death of that proposal. The airport wanted any rental car revenues lost by the system to be paid for by the train operator.
4. Disney has indicated they would if certain conditions are met. The reason the proposed route didn't go along I-4 and instead went north from MCO to near Universal/I-Drive and south from MCO with Disney on the complete opposite end is Disney indicated passing by I-Drive on the way was a no go. Putting the Disney stop on the opposite end of the line and having it be a different direction from the airport made it "inconvenient enough" to use it as a way to get to I-Drive from Disney that they were willing to work with that. Disney has also agreed to having the HSR stop on their property before Rick Scott killed it (I believe they insisted on the previous stop being moved to the convention center instead of further north on I-Drive for that).
 

JT3000

Well-Known Member
The proposal was for it to be completely privately funded.

By whom? The parks would be the only ones benefiting enough to justify the cost, especially since it isn't truly privately funded unless whomever also pays all future operational costs, not just initial construction costs. The state has been apprehensive to take on a project like this for that very reason.
 

UCF

Active Member
By whom? The parks would be the only ones benefiting enough to justify the cost, especially since it isn't truly privately funded unless whomever also pays all future operational costs, not just initial construction costs. The state has been apprehensive to take on a project like this for that very reason.
Globalvia, A spanish company that operates other systems like it in Europe. They would have been paying for both operational and construction costs, and taking all of the ticket revenue to pay for it. There page is in spanish, but here's the Bloomberg page on the company: https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=35639900

The project was approved by the city, county, and FDOT, the airport is the one who killed it, I believe about a year ago. The proposal was similiar in nature to the privately funded Brightline train being built from Orlando to Miami, and there is a possibility that eventually gets extended along the former HSR route. Privately funded mass transit has interest in Orlando because of the city's poor mass transit state with a lot of people going predictable routes for the theme parks, even if there is little to no interest anywhere else in the US.

Also, might I add before the HSR proposal was killed, Disney even agreed to donate land to it, and also promised they would direct people coming to Disney from MCO to use the HSR if the route went along 417 and avoided the 528 path/stops in the tourist corridor.
 

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
The maglev project was dead on arrival. It was pitched by AMT, a company that goes around making big promises and building nothing. They started work on one actual project and it was a bust.

Even if the AMT maglev was built, it is probably not what people think. The word ‘maglev’ conjures up images of very high speed travel but AMT is focused on much slower speeds. They boast about achieving speeds greater than 35 mph at their test facility at Atlanta (which looks more like a good place to buy meth than the test bed of a technological marvel).
 

JoeCamel

Well-Known Member
The maglev project was dead on arrival. It was pitched by AMT, a company that goes around making big promises and building nothing. They started work on one actual project and it was a bust.

Even if the AMT maglev was built, it is probably not what people think. The word ‘maglev’ conjures up images of very high speed travel but AMT is focused on much slower speeds. They boast about achieving speeds greater than 35 mph at their test facility at Atlanta (which looks more like a good place to buy meth than the test bed of a technological marvel).
Wonder why? Do they get money from this?
 

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