Long live the Eastern Gateway or how I learned to love the Anaheim City Council after the election.

[BrianLo]

It hasn't moved, its always been slated to be off Manchester, as noted in the top right of this image from the original plan.

View attachment 848703

Anaheim wants the bridge to get crossing foot traffic off of Harbor, the main goal is for safety and ease traffic congestion. The Transpo Hub while part of the project isn't dependent on the bridge, other than they want to keep its added foot traffic from crossing Harbor. But nothing says they can't do it in phases where the Transpo Hub moves as the first domino to drop.

Fair enough. I’m definitely taking more of the lens that they won’t open it without the bridge. The pedestrian connector will have to increase grade and would be hard to walk back or work around. Plus they’d need a dedicated corridor to move security… though maybe that’s no longer the plan with the blowback they received.

The bridge though could be done in an semi-accelerated fashion.

Given everything I sort of thought we’d see Pandora kick off later this year but now suspect it’s actually 2026. I’m happy to be wrong!

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

It hasn't moved, its always been slated to be off Manchester, as noted in the top right of this image from the original plan.

View attachment 848703

Anaheim wants the bridge to get crossing foot traffic off of Harbor, the main goal is for safety and ease traffic congestion. The Transpo Hub while part of the project isn't dependent on the bridge, other than they want to keep its added foot traffic from crossing Harbor. But nothing says they can't do it in phases where the Transpo Hub moves as the first domino to drop.

They need the bridge before the security check point can move though, until security moves the esplanade area is pretty much off limits for construction.

 

[DLR92]

Does Disney really need a space for its “Disney Shuttle Drop Off” area?

 

[Disney Irish]

Fair enough. I’m definitely taking more of the lens that they won’t open it without the bridge. The pedestrian connector will have to increase grade and would be hard to walk back or work around. Plus they’d need a dedicated corridor to move security… though maybe that’s no longer the plan with the blowback they received.

The bridge though could be done in an semi-accelerated fashion.

Given everything I sort of thought we’d see Pandora kick off later this year but now suspect it’s actually 2026. I’m happy to be wrong!

They need the bridge before the security check point can move though, until security moves the esplanade area is pretty much off limits for construction.

Plans have changed since that image was released. All have been discussed in this thread, but a quick summary....

Security on the Harbor side is not moving off the esplanade to the beginning of the bridge as originally planned, its moving to just after the bridge exit still in the esplanade. And the bridge will be publicly accessible and have access from Harbor.

The extra construction area comes from the moving of the Transpo Hub to Manchester.

Edit - I just realized a bunch of that is not in this thread anymore. Don't know what happened but it was discussed at great length in this and other threads like the Avatar thread.

 

[Disney Irish]

Does Disney really need a space for its “Disney Shuttle Drop Off” area?

Its all the buses from Toy Story, local hotels, even their own CM shuttles, its a lot of traffic. The whole idea was to get that traffic off of Harbor and onto the backstreets as much as possible, hence it being moved to Manchester.

 

[DLR92]

It’s all the buses from Toy Story, local hotels, even their own CM shuttles, it’s a lot of traffic. The whole idea was to get that traffic off of Harbor and onto the backstreets as much as possible, hence it being moved to Manchester.

I’m mentioning what I circle in red. Shouldn’t the new proposed main shuttle in the rending suffice?

 

[Disney Irish]

I’m mentioning what I circle in red. Shouldn’t the new proposed main shuttle in the rending suffice? View attachment 848704

I'm not sure if you realize how small that is compared to the current Transpo Hub.

This is the current Transpo Hub -

Compared to that strip you're talking about -

So its not large enough to handle all the current traffic of the current Transpo Hub, basically that could handle maybe just the Toy Story buses but nothing else.

Also again the idea is to get all that traffic off of Harbor, that traffic for that small drop-off would still be coming from Harbor or crosses Harbor from Disney Way. So that doesn't work for what Anaheim wants to do with area traffic.

 

[Disney Irish]

I'm not sure if you realize how small that is compared to the current Transpo Hub.

This is the current Transpo Hub -

View attachment 848705

Compared to that strip you're talking about -

View attachment 848706

So its not large enough to handle all the current traffic of the current Transpo Hub, basically that could handle maybe just the Toy Story buses but nothing else.

Also again the idea is to get all that traffic off of Harbor, that traffic for that small drop-off would still be coming from Harbor or crosses Harbor from Disney Way. So that doesn't work for what Anaheim wants to do with area traffic.

To expand on this, if I recall correctly (and I could be misremembering) that area is currently the ride-share drop-off, ie Uber, Lyft, etc. And in EGW project will be expanded to include that area with the trees to the south up to Disney Way, essentially doubling its size. So it'll remain as a ride-share drop-off.

 

[AJFireman]

Just to add RunDisney has not announced the dates for DIsneyland Half Weekend in Jan/Feb 2026. Usually they have released the dates by now with registration in June. The Parking structure is where the start and finish for the races is currently held. If they had announced dates by now I think that would of given an idea if the project was starting or not. They are holding a race weekend in early September so it would have to be after that.

 

[TheDisneyParksfanC8]

The Transpo Hub is already slated to go off Manchester, that can be done at anytime and wouldn't take very long. Its the bridge and garage that are the main pieces of the EGW that will take a bit of time. And they aren't required to be done in order to start any work in the backlot. In fact if Disney wanted to they could close the backlot now and begin prep work, it doesn't require the EGW to be finished fully to start that.

This is why I'm saying I think it could all be done at the same time.

My impression is that once the 70th wraps, it will be full stream ahead on demoing the backlot. Avengers Campus would have gone up in about 2 ish years if it weren't for COVID. Here's hoping that if they play their cards right with the timing, Avatar will be up by 2029

 

[Misted Compass]

Do we know how long it took them to build the new bus loop in the Toy Story lot? If they only want to relocate the loops it could be done relatively quickly with further construction (parking structure, bridge) being done while Avatar gets built.