Okay, here's a preview of the edited version of my original post. Changes or additions are in bold. Deletion are not marked. I've only cleaned up the first several paragraphs so far. I'll finish it later. Just wanted to post what I have done so far so that you all have an idea what I'm trying to write...
The problem with the monorail system at WDW is that is was never designed to function as a park to park transportation system.
Oddly enough, when they built the MK at its current location in the northern reaches of the property (a site personally chosen by Walt himself), they discovered that the land planned for parking was swamp - unusable. In order to respect Walt's original site plan for the park, older brother Roy (CEO and now also President) decided to keep the park at its current location but the parking would go where it is today - at the Transportation and Ticket Center. Where parking would have gone - the unusable land - would be filled in with water as an artificial extension of Bay Lake.
So, the problem now was how to get guests to the park from the new location of the parking lot - quite a bit aways. The MK (along with the ferry boat) solved this very problem. Its transportation purpose was mandatory in order to overcome this problem. Additionally, it helped create the illusion of being magically transported to a different dimension of time - a different world. An inner loop served guests traveling to the MK from various hotels along the lagoon.
The EPCOT loop basically gives people who park at the MK parking lot a choice of new dimensions to choose from: magical goodness or futurist internationalism. It was added eleven years later and was never part of any Master Plan for the property. For what it does, it serves its purpose as a limited and very specific transportation function.
Between the three different monorail loops, none really provide cohesive attraction to attraction transportation as its function. You don't need to ride the monorail to go to EC, if you park at EC, for example. And you can't take the monorail from the MK loop to go directly to EC. You can go from MK to EC via monorail, but you have to switch trains and go on two lines in order to do so, proving that the system was never designed as a convenient transportation alternative to buses in this function.
When I was there at WDW a few weeks ago, while at the TTC, I was thinking about this, looking up at the sign, pointing the way to the train going to the MK and another pointing to entrance for the train to EC. This is the only loading area in all of WDW where you can choose the monorail spur location to ride on. But the TTC is neither here or there. It is a transportation hub at the edge of nowhere with a big parking lot with a speedway in the middle. Yet, this "place" out in the middle of nowhere has two monorail loops going to it. Several ideas ran through my head as to what could be done to make sense of this enigma. I'll get into that later.
Leaving EC, my sister and I ran to catch the monorail as it entered the station. Entering the train, my sister asked the CM if this train was going to the MK. The CM said, "No, it's going to..."
I interrupted, "Yes, I know... The Transportation and Ticket Center."
The CM confirmed and my sister insisted that we were on the wrong train until I explained the whole TTC thing to her.
The reason I bring this up is so that if you can understand the concept of the EC monorail loop never servicing the MK, then the MK Parking Lot must be misnamed because it serves the TTC (not the MK). In other words, the MK has no parking and you must park at a nearby transportation hub and take a train, bus, or ferry in order to get there.
Now, with this concept of transportation hub and the purpose of the TTC explained, I have a riddle for you. Why is there a transportation hub for a monorail system that wasn't even designed as a functional transportation system to begin with?
That adds to the riddle of why is there a transportation out in the middle of nowhere and why do monorail loops reach out to this middle of nowhere from theme parks that are obviously somewhere? You get where I'm coming from. Add all the questions I asked or implied so far.
If the TTC were to truly function in the capacity I described, it would have loops connecting it to the other two parks. The fact that it doesn't even do that makes it even less functional as a transportation hub. If it did have four loops, connecting it to all four parks, it would effectively have four loops connecting nowhere to four somewheres - or four loops going nowhere (or your car, if that's where you parked). So, this makes worse sense.
One way to make sense of it is to build a fifth gate at the TTC parking lot and parking structures there. Now, both monorail loops would actually go somewhere. But this raises more questions than it answers, concerning why some parks have their own parking and why the monorail has a prejudice over the parks it goes to or leaves from.
A centralized parking hub serving on-site hotels and retail for all the parks is the most logical thing I could think of that would make sense of this whole mess. You would also need a separate transit system that would also create a big four point loop connecting the parks for direct park to park transport. Now, that's what I call true park hopping!.
The EPCOT loop basically gives people who park at the MK parking lot a choice of new dimensions to choose from: magical goodness or futurist internationalism.
None really provide transportation as its function. You don't need to ride the monorail to go to EC, if you park at EC, for example. And you can't take the monorail from the MK loop to go directly to EC. You can go from MK to EC via monorail, but you have to switch trains and go on two lines in order to do so, proving that the system was never designed as a convenient transportation alternative to buses in this function.
When I was there at WDW a few weeks ago, while at the TTC, I was thinking about this, looking up at the sign, pointing the way to the train going to the MK and another pointing to entrance for the train to EC. This is the only loading area in all of WDW where you can choose the monorail spur location to ride on. But the TTC is neither here or there. It is a transportation hub at the edge of nowhere with a big parking lot with a speedway in the middle. Yet, this "place" out in the middle of nowhere has two monorail loops going to it. Several ideas ran through my head as to what could be done to make sense of this enigma. I'll get into that later.
Leaving EC, my sister and I ran to catch the monorail as it entered the station. Entering the train, my sister asked the CM if this train was going to the MK. The CM said, "No, it's going to..."
I interrupted, "Yes, I know... The Transportation and Ticket Center."
The CM confirmed and my sister insisted that we were on the wrong train until I explained the whole TTC thing to her.
The reason I bring this up is so that if you can understand the concept of the EC monorail loop never servicing the MK, then the MK Parking Lot must be misnamed because it serves the TTC (not the MK). In other words, the MK has no parking and you must park at a nearby transportation hub and take a train, bus, or ferry in order to get there.
Now, with this concept of transportation hub and the purpose of the TTC explained, I have a riddle for you. Why is there a transportation hub for a monorail system that wasn't even designed as a functional transportation system to begin with?
That adds to the riddle of why is there a transportation out in the middle of nowhere and why do monorail loops reach out to this middle of nowhere from theme parks that are obviously somewhere? You get where I'm coming from. Add all the questions I asked or implied so far.
If the TTC were to truly function in the capacity I described, it would have loops connecting it to the other two parks. The fact that it doesn't even do that makes it even less functional as a transportation hub. If it did have four loops, connecting it to all four parks, it would effectively have four loops connecting nowhere to four somewheres - or four loops going nowhere (or your car, if that's where you parked). So, this makes worse sense.
One way to make sense of it is to build a fifth gate at the TTC parking lot and parking structures there. Now, both monorail loops would actually go somewhere. But this raises more questions than it answers, concerning why some parks have their own parking and why the monorail has a prejudice over the parks it goes to or leaves from.
A centralized parking hub serving on-site hotels and retail for all the parks is the most logical thing I could think of that would make sense of this whole mess. You would also need a separate transit system that would also create a big four point loop connecting the parks for direct park to park transport. Now, that's what I call true park hopping!
