Would you like to see Disney Skyliner expand to all 4 parks and see the newly planned Brightline Train eventually connect WDW?

[TrainsOfDisney]

The best, most cost effective investment Disney could make to help with transit is to invest in the Magic Busses and improve parking logistics. Its kind of at the point that even if you stay on site, you'll have a better time if you just drive to all of the parks.

What’s a magic bus?

Visitors to Walt Disney World have been using multiple public transit options since 1971. Based on how packed the transit on property is, it would appear that most “middle class Americans” and other visitors are able to comprehend how to use it.

 

[GimpYancIent]

On the wild side! It would be truly creative / imaginative if WDW could develop a pneumatic tube system where guests can be loaded (strapped in of course) into comfortable capsules and propelled from and to the furthest points of the property at speed. I acknowledge it is not practical even w todays tech but it would make for a wild ride.

 

[AFoodie]

Yes, yes, yes! I hate driving my own car. Waiting patiently for the day that there’s direct public transit (train, monorail, anything!) from my house to Disney

 

[Skibum1970]

Of course you haven't -- there aren't any right now.

We were discussing what would happen if they tried to expand it across the entire resort, which would result in a lot of long Skyliner trips. It's one of the many reasons they aren't going to do it. It's a from of transportation that works for short trips around a central location; it's not efficient for longer trips that require numerous turn stations.

Skyliner access is actually a factor in my choice of resorts too -- I wouldn't stay at any of the Skyliner resorts (unless you count Boardwalk Inn and Beach/Yacht Club as Skyliner resorts; I'd still stay there) because they expect you to use it and have drastically cut back on other transportation options to DHS/Epcot.

I wanted to respond to one of your earlier posts and chose this one instead. I completely agree that the bus system works far better than a Skyliner system. Traveling by Skyliner is nice in the short term but a 30-40 ride? No thanks. Plus, if something happened, evacuating an entire ride path would be a nightmare. Also, if a thunderstorm rolled through, you would be stranded for a while. The bus system is far more practical and efficient than the Skyliner. Also, there are approximately 160,000 guests (at full occupancy) at Disney World hotels and that would overwhelm a Skyliner.

Talking about the 40 mintue ride from AK to MK. What if there is a 15 minute line to get on the Skyliner? Now, you've spent close to an hour and even more time out of your day.

My personal preference would be a light rail but connecting the resorts to the parks would be a logistical nightmare. The hotel locations do not appear to be established with any real forward thinking transportation plan.

 

[UNCgolf]

My personal preference would be a light rail but connecting the resorts to the parks would be a logistical nightmare. The hotel locations do not appear to be established with any real forward thinking transportation plan.

I'd also love a light rail.

It's too bad they didn't expand the monorail when they started building a bunch of hotels in the late 80s and early 90s.

 

[Trackmaster]

I wanted to respond to one of your earlier posts and chose this one instead. I completely agree that the bus system works far better than a Skyliner system. Traveling by Skyliner is nice in the short term but a 30-40 ride? No thanks. Plus, if something happened, evacuating an entire ride path would be a nightmare. Also, if a thunderstorm rolled through, you would be stranded for a while. The bus system is far more practical and efficient than the Skyliner. Also, there are approximately 160,000 guests (at full occupancy) at Disney World hotels and that would overwhelm a Skyliner.

Talking about the 40 mintue ride from AK to MK. What if there is a 15 minute line to get on the Skyliner? Now, you've spent close to an hour and even more time out of your day.

My personal preference would be a light rail but connecting the resorts to the parks would be a logistical nightmare. The hotel locations do not appear to be established with any real forward thinking transportation plan.

Yeah, I agree with your logic for the most part. I don't think that the Skyliner is a particularly effective or efficient mode of public transit, but for the purposes of a theme park resort, there's a certain "fun value" (or "consumption value" it). You would still need active bus routes to connect the resort, but the Skyliner could be a potential fun option for people.

However, my problem with offering "fun" options in this case is that public transit tends to work best when there's fewer options and you can get everyone doing the same thing reliably. To fewer people using a given transit option and the less efficient it becomes. In reality, I do think that Disney would be best served to phase out all transit options other than the busses (except for the pre-existing skiliner, monorail, and stuff that they've already invested in) and just beef up their fleet of busses. The roads are already there, busses give Disney absolute freedom to change up routes based on demand and need, maintenance is more straight forward, there really isn't that much traffic on property and they can open up short-cuts for busses if necessary, and people are already used to busses.

I even think that if "fun" is what they're going for, they could even make the busses more fun and interactive. What everybody hates about the busses is artificial and could be improved by de-emphasizing other modes of transit and beefing up the bus fleet. For the cost of a Skyliner or a monorail, you could fund new busses and their upkeep for years (without even considering the maintenance nightmares and costs of other forms of transit). I think that the ultimate goal should be fully electric and autonomously driven busses that can charge when guests are getting off and on. CMs would be employed to help guests getting on and off at stations and maintaining order and efficiency, and not need to be pointlessly to turn a wheel or hit a gas pedal.

 

[Goofy213]

Whatever happened to the concept busses shown at D23? I think they called them the sorcerer class busses. They would added a little bit of excitement to riding the busses. Still think they need designated lanes just for busses. They have them in some places on property already, like entering Disney Springs. Most cities have designated bus lanes and they work very well. Only reason I can see not to add them would be exstectic reasons with extra lanes and loss of landscaping.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

public transit tends to work best when there's fewer options and you can get everyone doing the same thing reliably.

And how did you arrive at this conclusion?

 

[Trackmaster]

And how did you arrive at this conclusion?

Most public transit doesn't operate like a theme park. Its rare for lines to form to get on. For busy stations at certain times of the day, maybe you'll have to wait a train or two. The problem that most people generally have is waiting for the bus or train to get there in the first place. The more popular a route is, and the more likely that it is to be a route that sets up a lot of connections, the more busses or trains they'll put on the route, and the less time you'll have to wait -- despite more demand and competition to get on.

If a route is unpopular and obscure enough, maybe they'll only send something once every 40 minutes, so you wait an average of ~20 minutes (but in reality if you need to get somewhere on time, you might have to plan for the 40 minutes). If it runs every 10 minutes, your average wait is only ~5 minutes, but you still might want to plan for the 10 minutes.

Also, for very popular routes, they'll be more likely to have nonstop routes. Those will be the major connection hubs that might get train routes or the Express routes, while they use busses and local train routes (with more stops).

While I know I started by saying "public transit doesn't operate like a theme park", the transit to get around the resort at large kind of does. A big problem people have with Disney's busses is that they don't come often enough. Concentrating more resources into growing the bus fleet will concentrate more people into the bus stops and give them access to more frequently stopping busses.

Does this make any sense?

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Does this make any sense?

Well... it didn’t really have anything to do with what I quoted.

Disney does exactly what you are suggesting, they send more buses when demand is needed.

 

[Ayla]

Fair! I just happen to enjoy the ride up and over the hubbub to my destination, some folks are afraid of the ride for various personal reasons (and that's OK, just like some folks have a fear of heights or flying). I see it as an easy, convenient and actually efficient way to go from one park to another and linking resorts in along the way. True current management will probably try to take away one of the other options, I do not have a lot of confidence in the common sense (or lack thereof) that current management has.

I'm guessing you didn't visit in the Summer. The Skyliner goes down pretty much every day in the Summer due to heavy rain/thunderstorms/wind.

 

[Ayla]

On the wild side! It would be truly creative / imaginative if WDW could develop a pneumatic tube system where guests can be loaded (strapped in of course) into comfortable capsules and propelled from and to the furthest points of the property at speed. I acknowledge it is not practical even w todays tech but it would make for a wild ride.

I think anyone who has visited the top of the Gateway Arch would veto that idea!

 

[Trackmaster]

Well... it didn’t really have anything to do with what I quoted.

Disney does exactly what you are suggesting, they send more buses when demand is needed.

I think that you're missing the point. The fact that "Disney sends more buses when demand is needed" is 100% the problem with having many options instead of hubs and commonly used routes. Yes, "demand is being met" but when its slower, you have the problem of Disney forgetting about you, and you standing and waiting just for one bus to get there. You're better off on high volume days where at least you know you'll be getting buses more frequently. You'd be better off Disney used one system so they could invest all of their resources in giving you options on demand.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

I think that you're missing the point. The fact that "Disney sends more buses when demand is needed" is 100% the problem with having many options instead of hubs and commonly used routes. Yes, "demand is being met" but when its slower, you have the problem of Disney forgetting about you, and you standing and waiting just for one bus to get there. You're better off on high volume days where at least you know you'll be getting buses more frequently. You'd be better off Disney used one system so they could invest all of their resources in giving you options on demand.

No... that’s not how it works. Unless something unusual occurs (which happens in all forms of transportation) a bus shows up within 20 minutes. Disney doesn’t forget about you. During peak times, aka rush hour, Disney has more busses in operation and monitors the crowds and uses them as efficiently as possible.

I’m not missing the point, I don’t agree with the point you are making and do not think it’s accurate. I think the more choices in transportation the better.

 

[Trackmaster]

No... that’s not how it works. Unless something unusual occurs (which happens in all forms of transportation) a bus shows up within 20 minutes. Disney doesn’t forget about you. During peak times, aka rush hour, Disney has more busses in operation and monitors the crowds and uses them as efficiently as possible.

I’m not missing the point, I don’t agree with the point you are making and do not think it’s accurate. I think the more choices in transportation the better.

I mean 20+ minutes is what I would call a high wait time. So they're not sending enough buses through to make it an effective transit option -- even if supply is technically meeting demand. If I have to account for 20 minute wait times for a Magic Bus, I'll probably just stay off site and have my own car at that point. When I was Boston and taking the T/biking/Ubering everywhere, I'd want 8 minute intervals to make the T worthwhile.

From my perspective, I've lived closed to WDW year a few years, and have no need for hotels. Its easy for me to drive in. Even when I was taking vacations here, I found it easier just to drive and not worry about the buses.

 

[IanDLBZF]

I'd love to see Skyliner expanded to Disney Springs and Brightline should also serve the Transportation & Ticket Center, along with Amtrak and SunRail.

 

[GuyFawkes]

I'd love to see Skyliner expanded to Disney Springs and Brightline should also serve the Transportation & Ticket Center, along with Amtrak and SunRail.

A train from the airport to Disney and then on to Coco. would make sense to me. Which I have seen the part to Coco so that's under way.

You have a couple of problems for all this.

Disney wouldn't like foreign travelers to be able to exit Disney to the Fl coast in an easy and safe way. Europeans are use to trains and if I was them a visit to the coast with a possible space launch would be fun. Rocket launches have become crazy close together at Cape Carnival. The water in general is warm, beach town stuff going on. Have to say Coco Beach could use some fresh blood in there but it looks fun enough to me. You can get back on the train up to Orlando and fly back home easy as that.

Companies like Mears will hate the idea of a train to Disney property and will most like sue over that.

I don't know the official plans for Brightline but I have seen their construction going on.

Edit.....just looked up the plans and no stop in Coco, heading for Miami.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Disney wouldn't like foreign travelers to be able to exit Disney to the Fl coast in an easy and safe way.

Disney has already agreed to a Brightline station on property as the first phase of their expansion to Tampa. A stop in the Cocoa area is still considered a future possibility along with an extension to Port Canaveral.

 

[Club Cooloholic]

If you'd like me to... IMO, the Skyliner mars every vista it enters. It reminds me of ubiquitous high-power lines, boardwalk skyways or ski mountain gondolas... ugly but necessary stuff we experience regularly in normal life. Imagine each of the below views if the Skyliner didn't exist. They would be better. Not saying it isn't a fun ride or a great convenience for certain hotels. For me, neither of those is nearly as valuable a tradeoff for losing how unique & amazing WDW looked and felt - in the macro - before all the visionless, I-4 style, max-RoI development of Iger/Chapek era (Bay Lake Tower being the opening salvo and Skyliner being a more recent one).
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Conversely, the monorail trains make every vista they enter more unique and awesome. Its beams are smooth & monolithic (and now a little dirty, yes), and become part of landscape (though I wouldn't mind if they let vines grow on them). While the Skyliner wires & pylons are noticeably chaotic & jarring (to my eye & brain):
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I agree with this, it's kinda ugly. That said one that went to AKL from AK and then maybe linked to Blizzard Beach and then off to somewhere else would be kind of cool.
Can we just get a monorail stop at WL already?

 

[Club Cooloholic]

A train from the airport to Disney and then on to Coco. would make sense to me. Which I have seen the part to Coco so that's under way.

You have a couple of problems for all this.

Disney wouldn't like foreign travelers to be able to exit Disney to the Fl coast in an easy and safe way. Europeans are use to trains and if I was them a visit to the coast with a possible space launch would be fun. Rocket launches have become crazy close together at Cape Carnival. The water in general is warm, beach town stuff going on. Have to say Coco Beach could use some fresh blood in there but it looks fun enough to me. You can get back on the train up to Orlando and fly back home easy as that.

Companies like Mears will hate the idea of a train to Disney property and will most like sue over that.

I don't know the official plans for Brightline but I have seen their construction going on.

Edit.....just looked up the plans and no stop in Coco, heading for Miami.

Disney getting rid of Magic Express seems to suggest they don't care anymore if guests leave the property as much. They are encouraging guests to rent a car or take an Uber and have gotten rid of many of the benefits of staying onsite so basically saying go ahead and stay off site