I think with the right approach an expansion to the monorail system could really help the flow of transportation through the resort, even areas not served by monorail and without needing to be a large expansion.
As it stands now there is a whole lot of overkill in the Disney transportation system. They essentially operate 5 hubs for buses with each hub offering service to each hotel. That's about 20 routes from each hub making a total of about 100 routes. Meanwhile monorails and watercraft focus their attention on transporting just as many people as the buses do in the worlds largest park and ride operation.
The first thing that could be done to enhance the transportation would be to remove the park and ride system so that the monorails could actually be used for a real purpose and help to move people through the resort. A parking garage could be built to the west of the MK just to the west of the canal housing the Electric Water Pageant, the trees in the area could easily hide the garage from view. Trams could run along the walk around the world to bring guest to the front entrance.
With the TTC no longer needed the Express and Epcot line could be combined to form one line connecting MK to EPCOT. This line could then be extended to Studios and then to DAK. There would then be one monorail line connecting all parks and traveling in two directions. Meaning no park would ever be more than three stops away on the monorail from any other park.
With travel to and from the parks now being very easy, the bus system could be split up into zones. Each theme park could run transportation to the nearby hotels. So for example if your at DAK and want to go to Polynesian you would ride the monorail to MK and transfer to the resort monorail. If you were at MK and wanted to go to Coronado Springs you could ride the monorail to DAK and then get the bus to Coronado. Shorter bus routes and a use of less buses would enable the wait times and travel times for buses to be greatly reduced.
All in all the expansion would only be about as expansive as the original EPCOT expansion was. While it would be great to have monorails going all over the place it isn't completely necessary this small addition would make a huge impact.
Additionally another separate line could connect at EPCOT and then go to DTD.
I'm a fan of [this concept, overall], [except] for a few [key] things.
First, Hub-and-Spoke systems have proven themselves to be more efficient than Ring systems across the board, and that would come into play here.
You won't find a computer network setup in a "Token Ring" these days, except for redundant fiber infrastructure. Likewise, most subway systems are set up in a configuration similar to hub-and-spoke, since branch lines head into and out of a few central stations in the city.
With a ring, all traffic must pass through all nodes to get anywhere. WDW's current monorail system is a hybrid of both. If you board the Resort Loop to get from TTC to MK, you're going to stop at each resort, which is inefficient (hence the reason for the Express train). To go from MK to EC, you transfer at the "hub" (the TTC).
To expand the monorail AND make it an efficient method of transportation, you'd have to run branch lines from TTC to AK and DHS independently, otherwise you'd board at the MK and have to ride through EC and DHS to get to AK. You would probably end up spending more time on the train than you would waiting for a bus at MK and riding directly to AK.
I love the monorail, but WDW's just isn't set up for this type of adaptation. Their current method of switching isn't conducive to the type of train system they need, which would be one where trains could jump to another mainline or pull off at a station via a bypass. WDW's switches take 2 minutes to move, and they require the beams to lose power. So that pretty much limits the system to being one giant loop (south of TTC), or redundant branch lines from TTC to each new park.
If they would add buses, monitor queues at every stop, return DTD to a "hub" status (and just monitor guests to make sure they're not parking there to avoid paying to park), and finally utilize the GPS Dispatch system the way it was meant to be used, their transportation system might become something worth bragging about.
I DO like the idea of a parking garage behind Pirates. It could easily be masked, and what wasn't masked could be themed. Heck, charge extra to park there - so you pay a few bucks for close/covered parking in exchange for losing the magic of the morning arrival "show" across the lagoon.
