Project Z

[juniorthomas]

I'm not aware that it's had a definate yes or no at this point.

We'll know when we're supposed to know. Trust the Candidate.

 

[flavious27]

Well there is something to be said for sustainability. It may be expensive, but as long as maintenance and energy costs fall below bus drivers/gasoline/bus maintenance, its worth looking at.

But that gem appeared 60 pages into this thread. NICE.

True, if the operating costs over the lifetime of the new lines can are going to be much less it could be justified. They could have solar cells on the trains and panels positioned on the pylons, that would help to bring down the energy costs.

I posted that map in some other forum months ago; it fulfills the basic requirement of stopping at every resort that are currently built. I am thinking of designing out the new TTC to better illustrate what it would look like, and how to factor in any additions lines for a 5th gate and other resorts.

 

[juniorthomas]

True, if the operating costs over the lifetime of the new lines can are going to be much less it could be justified. They could have solar cells on the trains and panels positioned on the pylons, that would help to bring down the energy costs.

I posted that map in some other forum months ago; it fulfills the basic requirement of stopping at every resort that are currently built. I am thinking of designing out the new TTC to better illustrate what it would look like, and how to factor in any additions lines for a 5th gate and other resorts.

Absolutely. And a sustainable line of transportation works better in tandem with Walt's EPCOT idea. All they need is a little bit of focus on those monorails and they'd be set.

While they aren't billed as rides, everyone loves to go on the monorail. Making them a larger part of the theme park experience would make a lot of people happy. That is to say that waiting in line for a monorail gives you a much better reward than waiting in line for a bus does.

 

[tirian]

It doesn't. It could always happen down the line. But it's very unlikely right now stateside.

TWDC believes it has spent a (blank) load of $$$ on 'Disney Parks' and hasn't seen the need to spend more right now, let alone on an attraction of this magnitude (read that to be cost).

And if it does happen, you're likely looking at years off now ...

To be fair, they are spending loads of cash on DCA. :shrug:

This is more the result of grouping all the American parks together as Disney Parks. Does Epcot need a new country at the same time DCA needs an attraction? Snip, snip, cut, cut.

 

[tirian]

Snip, snip, cut, cut.

Hey, that's what my dog's surgery sounding like!

Never mind.

 

[flavious27]

To be fair, they are spending loads of cash on DCA. :shrug:

This is more the result of grouping all the American parks together as Disney Parks. Does Epcot need a new country at the same time DCA needs an attraction? Snip, snip, cut, cut.

Well disney couldn't let dca linger out there in the cold.

 

[flavious27]

Absolutely. And a sustainable line of transportation works better in tandem with Walt's EPCOT idea. All they need is a little bit of focus on those monorails and they'd be set.

While they aren't billed as rides, everyone loves to go on the monorail. Making them a larger part of the theme park experience would make a lot of people happy. That is to say that waiting in line for a monorail gives you a much better reward than waiting in line for a bus does.

I wonder if disney could get the monorail system classified as high speed rail and get money from obama.

With the mark VI trains being over 20 years old, I wonder how many buses have been turned over in that time frame.

 

[ChrisFL]

To be fair, they are spending loads of cash on DCA. :shrug:

This is more the result of grouping all the American parks together as Disney Parks. Does Epcot need a new country at the same time DCA needs an attraction? Snip, snip, cut, cut.

Disney is spending loads of cash on DCA because it needed a major attendance (and image) boost

Adding a monorail line to all of the resorts at WDW won't equal a major attendance boost

 

[tirian]

Disney is spending loads of cash on DCA because it needed a major attendance (and image) boost

Adding a monorail line to all of the resorts at WDW won't equal a major attendance boost

I was thinking about Project Z when I said that.

 

[tirian]

Well disney couldn't let dca linger out there in the cold.

Correct.

 

[juniorthomas]

I wonder if disney could get the monorail system classified as high speed rail and get money from obama.

With the mark VI trains being over 20 years old, I wonder how many buses have been turned over in that time frame.

Honestly, you have to think they're trying to come up with ways to do so. Instead of building a brand new rail line, they could instead build a monorail extension (with a monorail car upgrade) that would give access from MCO directly to a hub that could connect them to the appropriate resort or the TTC cutting out the need to catch a bus from your hotel, etc... You could get from the airport to the park/your resort in one move.

That would be a coup if they could swing it. (And if anyone could swing it, it would be Disney.)

 

[WDWFREAK53]

I wonder if disney could get the monorail system classified as high speed rail and get money from obama.

With the mark VI trains being over 20 years old, I wonder how many buses have been turned over in that time frame.

It's not only the cost that's a concern for Disney...it's the ability to be flexible.

If a monorail goes down...the entire line goes down and you'd still need other modes of transportation whereas if a bus breaks down, they'll just send a new bus and the line never goes down...plus...if there is an influx of people at DHS...they can reroute buses from other places or add new buses to the line to help, but you can't do that with a monorail (aside from adding a new train to the rail...which takes time and stops other lines with the track switches).

 

[lazyboy97o]

Absolutely. And a sustainable line of transportation works better in tandem with Walt's EPCOT idea. All they need is a little bit of focus on those monorails and they'd be set.

Not very sustainable to use up tons of resources to build new guideways when busses can be placed on roads that exist and will be used for more than just guest transit.

It's not only the cost that's a concern for Disney...it's the ability to be flexible.

If a monorail goes down...the entire line goes down and you'd still need other modes of transportation whereas if a bus breaks down, they'll just send a new bus and the line never goes down...plus...if there is an influx of people at DHS...they can reroute buses from other places or add new buses to the line to help, but you can't do that with a monorail (aside from adding a new train to the rail...which takes time and stops other lines with the track switches).

To add to this, the monorails have never been able to properly deal with traffic to and from the Magic Kingdom.

The buses used to run to-and-from the Transportation and Ticket Center, but crowds put so much demand on the monorails and ferries that the bus depot was moved to be right at the Magic Kingdom.

 

[flavious27]

Honestly, you have to think they're trying to come up with ways to do so. Instead of building a brand new rail line, they could instead build a monorail extension (with a monorail car upgrade) that would give access from MCO directly to a hub that could connect them to the appropriate resort or the TTC cutting out the need to catch a bus from your hotel, etc... You could get from the airport to the park/your resort in one move.

That would be a coup if they could swing it. (And if anyone could swing it, it would be Disney.)

If the florida high speed was built, that could be done. You fly into orlando, take the orange squeeze to the station on disney property and then take the monorail to your hotel. Disney could have designated magical express trains on the monorails to separate guests with luggage and regular park guests or the beam on the pink line would have two tracks with one being regular guests and the other being hotel guests incoming and outgoing.

 

[juniorthomas]

Not very sustainable to use up tons of resources to build new guideways when busses can be placed on roads that exist and will be used for more than just guest transit.


To add to this, the monorails have never been able to properly deal with traffic to and from the Magic Kingdom.

The buses used to run to-and-from the Transportation and Ticket Center, but crowds put so much demand on the monorails and ferries that the bus depot was moved to be right at the Magic Kingdom.

I don't have any statistics to back my claim up, but I'm just throwing ideas out there. If a sustainable mode of transportation does more for WDW than their bus lines, I say go for it. You still have buses and the roads for moving things in, but they become less crowded and maybe we hear less about people getting hit by buses at Disney.

Sorry if I offended your appreciation of bus transportation.

 

[ChrisFL]

I was thinking about Project Z when I said that.

Oh wow, you want to speak about the original topic...my mistake

Well since this topic has veered into monorail discussion...what about the dreaded "fee to ride" idea.

I'm just going to throw out some math and see what this does.

Let's say that all 4 parks combined get 30 million visitors a year, I think it's more than that, but just as an example. Let's say half of them will use a monorail from their hotel, or from the TTC, again, completely hypothetical.

That's 15 million per year. If there was a $1 fee for every use, and the monorail takes 2 trips for each guest, that's $30 million a year that could be used to sustain a major monorail project.

I don't know about anyone else, but I wouldn't mind paying $2 a day to have monorail service all over the resort.

 

[flavious27]

It's not only the cost that's a concern for Disney...it's the ability to be flexible.

If a monorail goes down...the entire line goes down and you'd still need other modes of transportation whereas if a bus breaks down, they'll just send a new bus and the line never goes down...plus...if there is an influx of people at DHS...they can reroute buses from other places or add new buses to the line to help, but you can't do that with a monorail (aside from adding a new train to the rail...which takes time and stops other lines with the track switches).

That is true. I mentioned about having the pink line being double tracked on a single beam, they could use that extra capacity when the amount of guests checking in and out is low while park guests using the monorail is high.

I doubt though that even if disney did build this pie in the sky expansion that they would get rid of the buses entirely. They would still need buses for transporting guests to special events and moving employees.

 

[flavious27]

Not very sustainable to use up tons of resources to build new guideways when busses can be placed on roads that exist and will be used for more than just guest transit.


To add to this, the monorails have never been able to properly deal with traffic to and from the Magic Kingdom.

The buses used to run to-and-from the Transportation and Ticket Center, but crowds put so much demand on the monorails and ferries that the bus depot was moved to be right at the Magic Kingdom.

Well 44k people leaving at once is going to hurt any transportation system, try using any kind of transportation after a sporting event and you get the same results.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I don't know about anyone else, but I wouldn't mind paying $2 a day to have monorail service all over the resort.

What about those who do not want to pay? Force people to rent a car and let them leave property? Or continue to offer the buses, thus hurting your projected ridership?

Well 44k people leaving at once is going to hurt any transportation system, try using any kind of transportation after a sporting event and you get the same results.

A problem that will only be made worse by having multiple hotels on a single line. With speed limited travel times will decrease for some destinations, but increase for many others (either just getting there or being stuck at your resort waiting for a monorail with available capacity). There will still be crowding. People will still be stuck standing. How much cool factor will be left when the end experience ends up not much different from the existing busses?

 

[RSoxNo1]

To be fair, they are spending loads of cash on DCA. :shrug:

This is more the result of grouping all the American parks together as Disney Parks. Does Epcot need a new country at the same time DCA needs an attraction? Snip, snip, cut, cut.

But... but... but... weren't we told that the spending at DCA wouldn't effect WDW?