New Transportation Project

[WDW-Imagineer]

I've decided to jump back into some Imagineering projects and launched a complete overhaul of the WDW Transportation System. Here are some of the details:

• Brand new Ticket & Transportation Center at Seven Seas Lagoon. This new TTC would now have 5 monorail stations (the Current MK Express, MK Local, Epcot, MGM, & Animal Kingdom). Plus new water transportation station, bus stations and ticketing centers.
• New Transportation Hub near Epcot. This hub would include stations for the 2 new Animal Kingdom & MGM Monorail Lines as well as the current Epcot Line which will be utilized as a link between the TTC and new Hub.
• 4 New light-rail or Tomorrowland Transit Authority type system. 2 will originate out of the new transportation hub near Epcot and service Downtown Disney (Port Orleans, Old Key West, Saratoga Springs, Disney Institute, entire Downtown Disney) & Epcot Area (Epcot, World Showcase, Yacht & Beach, Boardwalk, Swan & Dolphin). 1 line will originate out of the MGM Monorail Station and service that area (Caribbean Beach, Pop Century). The 4th line will originate out of the Animal Kingdom Monorail Stations and service the area (All Star resorts & Coronado Springs). I am pretty confident regarding the routing and stations of the light-rail system, I'm still working out the details of the system itself (# of cars, # of tracks, etc.)
• Animal Kingdom Lodge & Wilderness Lodge will become monorail resorts on the Animal Kingdom Line and Magic Kingdom Local Line, respectively.
• Complete overhaul (redesign) of current Monorails & Stations as well as the bus system.

This is the basic outline of the project, I will provide some more details and maybe some sketches and preliminary CAD drawings soon. I would say I am about 70% finished with CAD draft of the new TTC (monorail portion).

 

[MonorailGreen]

Originally posted by WDW-Imagineer
I've decided to jump back into some Imagineering projects and launched a complete overhaul of the WDW Transportation System. Here are some of the details:

• Brand new Ticket & Transportation Center at Seven Seas Lagoon. This new TTC would now have 5 monorail stations (the Current MK Express, MK Local, Epcot, MGM, & Animal Kingdom). Plus new water transportation station, bus stations and ticketing centers.
• New Transportation Hub near Epcot. This hub would include stations for the 2 new Animal Kingdom & MGM Monorail Lines as well as the current Epcot Line which will be utilized as a link between the TTC and new Hub.
• 4 New light-rail or Tomorrowland Transit Authority type system. 2 will originate out of the new transportation hub near Epcot and service Downtown Disney (Port Orleans, Old Key West, Saratoga Springs, Disney Institute, entire Downtown Disney) & Epcot Area (Epcot, World Showcase, Yacht & Beach, Boardwalk, Swan & Dolphin). 1 line will originate out of the MGM Monorail Station and service that area (Caribbean Beach, Pop Century). The 4th line will originate out of the Animal Kingdom Monorail Stations and service the area (All Star resorts & Coronado Springs). I am pretty confident regarding the routing and stations of the light-rail system, I'm still working out the details of the system itself (# of cars, # of tracks, etc.)
• Animal Kingdom Lodge & Wilderness Lodge will become monorail resorts on the Animal Kingdom Line and Magic Kingdom Local Line, respectively.
• Complete overhaul (redesign) of current Monorails & Stations as well as the bus system.

This is the basic outline of the project, I will provide some more details and maybe some sketches and preliminary CAD drawings soon. I would say I am about 70% finished with CAD draft of the new TTC (monorail portion).

That sounds awesome... I can't wait for the draft =)

 

[WDW-Imagineer]

Ok, here is an early draft of my new TTC. The design was inspired by the early designs for a World Showcase (Part of Walt Disney's EPCOT) to be located approximately where the TTC is now. You can find a picture of the World Showcase here.

Now on to my pictures:

From my Photo Album, regular size, and Bigger size.

That is my very early draft for the TTC, I hope to develope it more into the world showcase design, but for now that is the basical layout. The 2 parallel tracks on the top are the local & express monorail lines, in the middle is Disney-MGM Studios monorail line, to the left is the Animal Kingdom monorail line, and to the right is the Ecpot monorail line which will be utilized as a link between the new TTC and the new transporation hub near Epcot. Lately I've been kicking around the idea that I should include another monorail track from the new transportation hub at Epcot to Downtown Disney. Thus the light-rail line from the tranportation hub to the Downtown resorts and downtown itself would be shortened to serice only the resorts. Boat service would still be available for these resorts to get to Downtown.

Well, thats it for now. I have a WDW Transportation Map that I will do a little work with in Photoshop so you can have a overview map of the entire system (a lot easier to read a map than try to visualize my words) I'll try to get that done by the end of the weekend.

 

[cloudboy]

Interesting idea! I have been working on a system for a while now, and I, too have a hub near Epcot. I do have a couple of questions for you.

1) Where are you plannin gon locating the Epcot hub? I am thinkinng in the area just west of the Epcot entrance from Epcot Center Drive.

2) Have you thought about how you would get from the Hub to Disney Studios? I am thinking to go directly south, just to the east of the Epcot resorts. The problem is there is not much land there, and there is already a road under the waterbridge. How would you get across that - either an elevated system, but that would be visible from Epcot World Showcase, or to tunnel under, but tunneling in Florida is dangerous and expensive.

3) I have been thinking about the TTC, and how really this is no longer a central location. Does it need to be kept?

4) I really like how you have laid out the monorail station in the loops - a very good idea. I am assuming that you would board from the center of the loop, like the Tomorrowland Transit peoplemover? What size did you make the loops - how tight can the monorails turn?

 

[cherrynegra]

Wow, those schematics were incredibly detailed and well thought out. Now, since we're building our "dream transit systems," perhaps you could build a monorail line from the airport. I know. It's far fetched. But I think that would be so convienent. Our subway system here in the San Francisco Bay Area now has trains that pull directly into the airport terminal. Very convienent.

 

[WDW-Imagineer]

Interesting idea! I have been working on a system for a while now, and I, too have a hub near Epcot. I do have a couple of questions for you.

1) Where are you plannin gon locating the Epcot hub? I am thinkinng in the area just west of the Epcot entrance from Epcot Center Drive.

> That is pretty much where I am planning on putting the Epcot hub, to the west of the Epcot parking lot. Although I still need to look at some satellite photos to make sure I can do that.


2) Have you thought about how you would get from the Hub to Disney Studios? I am thinking to go directly south, just to the east of the Epcot resorts. The problem is there is not much land there, and there is already a road under the waterbridge. How would you get across that - either an elevated system, but that would be visible from Epcot World Showcase, or to tunnel under, but tunneling in Florida is dangerous and expensive.

> Actually, I was planning on running the Disney Studios line from the Epcot hub in between World Drive and Epcot Resorts Blvd. The Animal Kingdom Line would run west of World Drive, cross over to the Epcot Hub, and then back over World Drive again.


3) I have been thinking about the TTC, and how really this is no longer a central location. Does it need to be kept?

> The new TTC, although no longer a central transportation hub in terms of location, I feel it is still an important part of the whole system. It is going to allow access from anywhere in the resort to Magic Kingdom, the resorts (now including Wilderness Lodge). Yesterday I added a tower in the middle of the center loop which looks similar to an air traffic control tower and is going to serve the same purpose. It will allow operators to monitor the entire MK lines as well as all monorails coming into the TTC. The new TTC is also going to include an expanded ticket center, some shops, and maybe even a restaurant.


4) I really like how you have laid out the monorail station in the loops - a very good idea. I am assuming that you would board from the center of the loop, like the Tomorrowland Transit peoplemover? What size did you make the loops - how tight can the monorails turn?

> Actually, the rectangular section in the middle of the picture is the station for all three lines. I still have to figure out how I'm going to route the people for each station. The loops are in a 250 ft radius, which is the tightest turning radius in which the monorail can turn. The loading/unloading system in TTA is similar to that of an omni-mover ride system, and is a bit impracticable for the monorail.

I originally created the loops as just the tracks, but I soon created a tunnel, then buildings around them. The vision I have is for people to be inside of the buildings (getting tickets, information, shopping, etc.) and see the monorail glide overhead. I think I'm going to make the buildings large and open, similar to that of an airport terminal, with a large amount of windows on the front (inner part of loop).

Thanks for the comments! Please keep them coming.