New Monorail Fleet for WDW

[matt9112]

If you are talking about what the majority of the shareholders will and will not like you better be.

i know it is different due to local in cali with both parks and there shopping all on to of each other...but in that case is the monorail system used more like a subway? as in no bus system needed? just monorail and walking? i think we all can agree it boils down to a bus fleet being much cheaper....however a connected and close knit setup like cali would have been nice to a degree.

 

[PeterAlt]

Would love to see new trains,as they are really needed, but more stops is cost prohibitive. Why would they connect all aprks, especially when over 50% of people say they are half day parks. And with nextgen only being able to makenfps's at One park per day, there is no need for connectivity anymore.

I think the plan is to connect DAK with an at-grade light rail. You can really have two lines - one going north to MK and another to the EC/HS area. The one going to the studios would need to cross only two streets, so it makes sense to elevate it at those two locations. The rest of the route would be fenced off at ground level. Simple and inexpensive.

 

[PeterAlt]

We are probably going to have to listen to a couple more weeks of monorail footer discussion

Don't start... It's worthy of an honorable mention - as I did in my response - not a discussion. Some people just won't ever accept this - even if there was an inscription on it stating so.

 

[Master Yoda]

i know it is different due to local in cali with both parks and there shopping all on to of each other...but in that case is the monorail system used more like a subway? as in no bus system needed? just monorail and walking? i think we all can agree it boils down to a bus fleet being much cheaper....however a connected and close knit setup like cali would have been nice to a degree.

There are a number of issues with relying solely on monorails, The biggest problem would be flexibility. Monorails are great at getting a bunch of people from point A to B. You start to run into problems when you need to get a bunch of people from point A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and so on. You also can not add monorails to deal with increased capacity quickly and easily. Then there is the issue of reliability. If a bus breaks down it is no big deal. You pull up another bus, transfer the passengers and you are off again. When the monorail goes offline the entire track comes to a halt. Then what happens if the entire system goes down? You simply can not keep a fleet of 100-300 buses and drivers waiting around for that to happen.

Buses are not as attractive or romantic as a monorail, but they offer the most flexibility and reliability of any transportation system there is in WDW.

 

[Cosmic Commando]

"I feel like I've been working here on the monorail platform FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!

If one more person asks me which monorail goes to Harry Potter World, I will freak. out.

Don't look at the time, don't look at the time, don't look at the time, don't look at the time.

What?!? I've only been here for two hours!?!? I am so effin' done for today.

OK... I'll tell this batch of people that we're getting 24 new monorails, and the next batch of people that a fifth theme park is opening in 2015."

I'm pretty sure that's how it went.

 

[Cosmic Commando]

There are a number of issues with relying solely on monorails, The biggest problem would be flexibility. Monorails are great at getting a bunch of people from point A to B. You start to run into problems when you need to get a bunch of people from point A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and so on. You also can not add monorails to deal with increased capacity quickly and easily. Then there is the issue of reliability. If a bus breaks down it is no big deal. You pull up another bus, transfer the passengers and you are off again. When the monorail goes offline the entire track comes to a halt. Then what happens if the entire system goes down? You simply can not keep a fleet of 100-300 buses and drivers waiting around for that to happen.

Buses are not as attractive or romantic as a monorail, but they offer the most flexibility and reliability of any transportation system there is in WDW.

Plus, buses 95% (made up figure) of the time use infrastructure that you already must provide for offsite guests' and locals' cars.

 

[PeterAlt]

Nextgen has the potential for making a profit. You could put a monoral to every park and every resort and it will never make a dime.

Wrong. It can. If done right. I mentioned in my response above that the current Las Vegas monorail asked the citizens of the city to approve a bond sale (which they did in a referendum) that paid for the system as we know it today. The bonds are paid by collecting rider fees. Unfortunately, not enough people ride it to make the bond payments, forcing bankruptcy. If they built it from the airport to the strip in the beginning, there would have been enough riders to cover the bond payments.

Unlike the Las Vegas monorail, Disney, through Reedy Creek, has the power to sell its own low interest bonds (without going through a referendum). They can plan better than Las Vegas did and figure out where to build it in order to generate maximum ridership.

People with 1-day tickets should pay a fare to use the monorail. Multi-day tickets should have a monorail usage surcharge. Monorail hotels should charge a monorail usage surcharge as well. If they extend it to DTD, there would be additional shoppers, indirectly adding revenue. People will choose to take the monorail and leave their cars at the hotel because it would be cheaper and more convenient than paying the parking fee.

As DHS runs out of land, it could expand into the current parking lot. In theory, it can expand out I to the entire parking lot and people will simply park at EC and take a future monorail extension.

 

[PeterAlt]

"I feel like I've been working here on the monorail platform FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!

If one more person asks me which monorail goes to Harry Potter World, I will freak. out.

Don't look at the time, don't look at the time, don't look at the time, don't look at the time.

What?!? I've only been here for two hours!?!? I am so effin' done for today.

OK... I'll tell this batch of people that we're getting 24 new monorails, and the next batch of people that a fifth theme park is opening in 2015."

I'm pretty sure that's how it went.

That's totally inaccurate! How could people possibly think a fifth gate is coming in 2015?! No fifth gate will be constructed by 2015! They have it all wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong, I tell you!

It's coming but by at least 2020 or later.

 

[Admiral01]

I was referring to winning in the industry in general. And Disney most definitely is...And if you build a monorail to all four parks you would send the company into a collapse financially. It cannot be done.

Really? Blow a few hundred million dollars on a bad movie and all is ok for Disney, but spend a few hundred million dollars on a transportation project and it collapses a company?

I'm sorry, but that doesn't hold up mathematically. You may not like the idea of monorail expansion, and that's cool. It will likely never happen anyway. But don't make claims like a monorail expansion would collapse TWDC financially.

For what its worth, I would visit DHS and DAK a lot more if it were an easy monorail ride from EPCOT and I could leave my car in one place.

 

[CDavid]

There are a number of issues with relying solely on monorails, The biggest problem would be flexibility. Monorails are great at getting a bunch of people from point A to B. You start to run into problems when you need to get a bunch of people from point A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and so on. You also can not add monorails to deal with increased capacity quickly and easily. Then there is the issue of reliability. If a bus breaks down it is no big deal. You pull up another bus, transfer the passengers and you are off again. When the monorail goes offline the entire track comes to a halt. Then what happens if the entire system goes down? You simply can not keep a fleet of 100-300 buses and drivers waiting around for that to happen.

There are solutions to all these issues, but the more redundancy you build into an expanded monorail system the more its going to cost - for a project with an intangible return on investment which already carries a hefty price tag. I know very well it isn't going to happen, but in theory there are practical ways in which the monorail system could be expanded - but you would have to do it incrementally, and park-to-park links aren't even the priority (resort to park is where the traffic is).

 

[Master Yoda]

Wrong. It can. If done right. I mentioned in my response above that the current Las Vegas monorail asked the citizens of the city to approve a bond sale (which they did in a referendum) that paid for the system as we know it today. The bonds are paid by collecting rider fees. Unfortunately, not enough people ride it to make the bond payments, forcing bankruptcy. If they built it from the airport to the strip in the beginning, there would have been enough riders to cover the bond payments.

Unlike the Las Vegas monorail, Disney, through Reedy Creek, has the power to sell its own low interest bonds (without going through a referendum). They can plan better than Las Vegas did and figure out where to build it in order to generate maximum ridership.

People with 1-day tickets should pay a fare to use the monorail. Multi-day tickets should have a monorail usage surcharge. Monorail hotels should charge a monorail usage surcharge as well. If they extend it to DTD, there would be additional shoppers, indirectly adding revenue. People will choose to take the monorail and leave their cars at the hotel because it would be cheaper and more convenient than paying the parking fee.

As DHS runs out of land, it could expand into the current parking lot. In theory, it can expand out I to the entire parking lot and people will simply park at EC and take a future monorail extension.

Yeah, that Vegas monorail is a real cash cow. They filed for bankruptcy in 2010 with nearly $650 million in debt. The only reason the thing is still functioning is the bankruptcy wiped away more than $630 million of that debt and they still don't think the thing will actually be able to break even. Disney will have no such option.

 

[Bairstow]

Question:

People often put forth that expanding the monorail system at WDW is prohibitively expensive because it costs x millions of dollars per mile or whatnot.
BUT
Is there any reason that rather than more monorails of the type currently in service, a different form of light rail could be used between various locations on property?
Also, is it entirely necessary that the monorail tracks be as highly elevated as they are? I can understand the height for truck clearance in places where the tracks must pass over roads, but why are such long stretches of monorail tracks between EPCOT and the TTC that don't go over streets elevated so high in the air?

 

[Admiral01]

There are a number of issues with relying solely on monorails, The biggest problem would be flexibility. Monorails are great at getting a bunch of people from point A to B. You start to run into problems when you need to get a bunch of people from point A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and so on. You also can not add monorails to deal with increased capacity quickly and easily. Then there is the issue of reliability. If a bus breaks down it is no big deal. You pull up another bus, transfer the passengers and you are off again. When the monorail goes offline the entire track comes to a halt. Then what happens if the entire system goes down? You simply can not keep a fleet of 100-300 buses and drivers waiting around for that to happen.

Buses are not as attractive or romantic as a monorail, but they offer the most flexibility and reliability of any transportation system there is in WDW.

You are absolutely right. The bus system at WDW is the most flexible form of transportation. Their reliability comes from being able to quickly swap out a broken bus for a working bus. All true.

But I, for one, go to WDW to have that attractive and romantic feeling from my surroundings. The monorail gives me that feeling. I therefore use the monorail. The bus fleet reminds me of commuting from Cathedral Heights to DuPont Circle on my way to work. It isn't something I want to deal with on vacation. I therefore do not use the WDW buses. Never have. Never will. And, that causes me to largely skip DHS and DAK on many of my visits to WDW.

WDW is supposed to be a place where you can leave the real world behind. It is a place of entertainment. Entertainment isn't necessarily meant to fit the bill of flexible and reliable.

I suppose this is a case of "to each his/her own." I know how I feel about it, but that is all it is, just how I feel about it. Then again, the only reason I go to WDW is because of how it makes me feel...

 

[Master Yoda]

You are absolutely right. The bus system at WDW is the most flexible form of transportation. Their reliability comes from being able to quickly swap out a broken bus for a working bus. All true.

But I, for one, go to WDW to have that attractive and romantic feeling from my surroundings. The monorail gives me that feeling. I therefore use the monorail. The bus fleet reminds me of commuting from Cathedral Heights to DuPont Circle on my way to work. It isn't something I want to deal with on vacation. I therefore do not use the WDW buses. Never have. Never will. And, that causes me to largely skip DHS and DAK on many of my visits to WDW.

WDW is supposed to be a place where you can leave the real world behind. It is a place of entertainment. Entertainment isn't necessarily meant to fit the bill of flexible and reliable.

I suppose this is a case of "to each his/her own." I know how I feel about it, but that is all it is, just how I feel about it. Then again, the only reason I go to WDW is because of how it makes me feel...

It is, but it is still a publicly owned business that has to answer to the shareholders. Transportation produces next to zero returns. If you are creative enough you can show it breaking even on the books, but most of the time it looses money. For that reason Disney, like every other company in the world, is going to spend as little as they have to on it. The only time you will see monorail expansion is if they have no other choice or can get someone else to pay the tab.

 

[Master Yoda]

Question:

People often put forth that expanding the monorail system at WDW is prohibitively expensive because it costs x millions of dollars per mile or whatnot.
BUT
Is there any reason that rather than more monorails of the type currently in service, a different form of light rail could be used between various locations on property?
Also, is it entirely necessary that the monorail tracks be as highly elevated as they are? I can understand the height for truck clearance in places where the tracks must pass over roads, but why are such long stretches of monorail tracks between EPCOT and the TTC that don't go over streets elevated so high in the air?

The biggest expense is elevating the track which is absolutely necessary. The second you have cars and rail lines sharing the same elevation you are asking for disaster. Given the number of people the sue Disney because it rained or they stubbed their toe, I would hate to think what would happen if trains and cars started to mix.

 

[Tim_4]

Wrong. It can. If done right. I mentioned in my response above that the current Las Vegas monorail asked the citizens of the city to approve a bond sale (which they did in a referendum) that paid for the system as we know it today. The bonds are paid by collecting rider fees. Unfortunately, not enough people ride it to make the bond payments, forcing bankruptcy. If they built it from the airport to the strip in the beginning, there would have been enough riders to cover the bond payments.

Unlike the Las Vegas monorail, Disney, through Reedy Creek, has the power to sell its own low interest bonds (without going through a referendum). They can plan better than Las Vegas did and figure out where to build it in order to generate maximum ridership.

Wrong. Reedy Creek gives Disney an advantage over CORPORATIONS, not cities and towns. EVERY city and town (including Las Vegas) can float tax-free bonds. The lack of tax on municipal bond income is what keeps the interest rates low.

Source: Internal Revenue Code (Title 26 of the United States Code), Subtitle A, Chapter 1, Subchapter B, Part III, Section 103, Paragraph (a).

Except as provided in subsection (b), gross income does not include interest on any State or local bond.

 

[Tim_4]

This is going to be hugely unpopular, but I'm wearing my flame-retardant skivvies. Does anyone else thinks the monorail is just a royal pain in the buns? I know the whole point about the "magical" transformation from the parking lot to the front of MK but it just takes so damn long. I'm a local and when I consider going to a WDW park for the day or evening, there are times when I flat-out won't even consider the Magic Kingdom because it's such a hassle to get to and fro, especially if you're leaving at parade/fireworks time. I really look at the monorail access to MK as more of a nuisance than a benefit.

 

[stevehousse]

Just think if they didn't end up spending 2-3 billion dollars on plastic bracelets, all of that money really could have gone into expanding the monorail system...

 

[Big C 73]

This is going to be hugely unpopular, but I'm wearing my flame-retardant skivvies. Does anyone else thinks the monorail is just a royal pain in the buns? I know the whole point about the "magical" transformation from the parking lot to the front of MK but it just takes so damn long. I'm a local and when I consider going to a WDW park for the day or evening, there are times when I flat-out won't even consider the Magic Kingdom because it's such a hassle to get to and fro, especially if you're leaving at parade/fireworks time. I really look at the monorail access to MK as more of a nuisance than a benefit.

Reason:Too many people

 

[zulemara]

The biggest expense is elevating the track which is absolutely necessary. The second you have cars and rail lines sharing the same elevation you are asking for disaster. Given the number of people the sue Disney because it rained or they stubbed their toe, I would hate to think what would happen if trains and cars started to mix.

you have a very valid point, but that's frickin hilarious! People are stupid...it's called survival of the fittest