Yeah, it's primarily used as a walkway, but is occasionally used for vehicles. It just needs to be widened a bit. They would more than likely just build a new dedicated road built specifically for the trams though. I'm pretty sure they could do some things to make it look nicer. Either way it probably wouldn't look as bad as this:
Read parentsof4's analysis. I think your mind may be changed.
A water bridge would be nice, but I would guess a simple drawbridge would be the go to choice. I don't think some alternate transportation would really be worthwhile. It's actually a very short distance. It would be a shorter walk in than from most of the other parking lots and a lot of people usually opt to walk instead of using the trams anyway. Perhaps a moving walkway similar to what Universal uses would be better and they could save even more money by not running trams.
Well, knowing the current management style, any parking garage closer to MK will definitely be tagged "Premium Parking" and probably go for 1.6 times the regular parking rate.
Oho. Peoplemover. Now the charge for that garage just went up to 2x normal parking charge.
You could count on getting out of the parking lot mayhem a half hour quicker than those non-premium parkers...
I agree that guests probably won't be staying longer, but that model isn't the whole story. We don't just have to think about average stay, we also have to think about capacity. Truth be told, Disney would much rather have lower ticket prices and more people at the parks. They would make much more money selling hotel rooms, F&B, and merch. Instead, because they don't have the capacity to serve as many people as they would like, they've substantially raised prices. But this model is not sustainable, and it's not in the best interest of shareholders to continue down this path for much longer. The Orlando market has grown substantially in terms of new visitors, but not much of that growth is attributable to WDW. There is a plethora of new potential customers on Disney's doorstep right now, and Disney isn't letting them in. The only reason the parks aren't at capacity everyday is because they've raised prices so much. A fifth gate would solve this by dramatically expanding park capacity. The reasoning behind a fifth gate is a lot different than the previous 4 parks, hence why there's been such a long gap. Relatively soon though, a fifth gate will be more than justified, it will be a necessity.
In the old days, the majority of the park's profits came from merchandise and F&B. When the Bass Bros. came aboard, the wanted that cash upfront when the people walked in the gates. As prices went up, people bought less merchandise so those prices went up too. And did the room rates. And food. And now its a cycle. (It might be shocking to know that in 1974, when I worked at Disney, room rates for the Contemporary were the same as the Holiday Inn Maingate!)
