not sure they'd do it as all one rope. couldnt the cars easily transition between haul ropes at the stations and at the corner turn between epcot and riviera breaking it down into 3 different ropes instead of just one mega mega long one.
still not super sure why they didnt make that corner station between epcot and riviera a 3 way instead and go direct down to dhs from there rather than doing the weird zig zag making a longer travel time between epcot and dhs
One word: capacity.
You would have one-directional flow all the way from Pop/Art to Boardwalk in the morning and back at night. If you use a rough estimate for the number of rooms as follows:
Pop 2000;
Art 2000;
CBR 2000;
and Riviera 1000;
then you have roughly 7000 rooms worth of people. If you assume that half of those are going to DHS or Epcot then you get 3500 rooms worth of people all going in the same direction in the morning. If/when the segment from Boardwalk to Riviera would become saturated (extreme case, because guests will never want to use the system all at the same time) then the only way to avoid a build-up at Boardwalk would be to use the feeder lines from IG and DHS inefficiently, i.e. far below their capacity. Similarly in the morning the Boardwalk-IG and Boardwalk to DHS lines would only ever run at half capacity because the flow of people coming from Riviera would be split in half. The only potential change would be that Crescent Lake resort guests, BC in particular, could easily use the Skyliner to get to DHS faster.
The way they did it now they have an omni-directional flow even at peak times so the demand is spread out over the network instead of concentrated on one line. If you use the same assumption that half the number of rooms of each resort are going to DHS or Epcot then the demand per day for each segment in one direction is:
Pop/Art-CBR: 2000 rooms;
CBR-DHS: 500 rooms from CBR + 1000 from Pop/Art= 1500;
CBR-Riviera: 500 rooms from CBR + 1000 from Pop/Art=1500;
and Riviera-Epcot: 250 rooms from Riviera + 500 from CBR + 1000 from Pop/Art= 1750.
This is the demand per day per segment in one direction with your scenario for comparison, again assuming that half of the resort guests are going to DHS or Epcot:
Pop/Art-CBR: 2000 rooms;
CBR-Riviera: +1000 = 3000 rooms;
Riviera-Boardwalk: +500 = 3500 rooms;
Boardwalk-DHS: 3500/2 = 1750 rooms;
and Boardwalk-IG: 3500/2=1750 rooms.
Your potential peak demand on one segment just doubled.
Your scenario would also require spending more on the stations because what is now just a bend on the Boardwalk parking lot would have to become an entry and exit station with facilities for guests at CBR, which is more expensive. Furthermore, the footprint of the current transfer station would eat up a much bigger chunk of the Boardwalk parking lot than the bend will. And finally, you mention a longer travel time between Epcot and DHS. The purpose of the system is not to make park hopping faster, its purpose is to take resort guests to the parks and back. There are already two options in place to hop between Epcot and DHS, namely the boats and the pathway.
