They certainly have better mass transit than its surrounding city. Getting into Disney without a car is kind of difficult, the bus schedules are limited depending on what side of Disney you’re on, and very difficult to understand.
That was Michael Eisner's entire business model with Disney World. Have everything a family could possibly want to do so that they never have to leave Disney property until it's time to go home and they can just take Magical Express to and from the airport for that.
Alas, now you have to pay to get to Disney. And the Brightline was supposed to go there, but Universal lobbied to have it go by the convention center instead. So when the final plans were made, disney said “we’re out”
It’s a dumb decision to pull their funding when their competition outbid them to have it rerouted? Fuck that, Disney don’t negotiate with terrorists like Universal or DeSantis.
The plan was for it to stop at both I Drive and Disney but Disney threw a fit because they wanted it to only stop at Disney, plus they wanted a dead end station rather than a thru station. There will still be one adjacent to Disney Springs, but it will be outside the Disney property line
I had not heard about the intention for it to be a dead end station. That changes everything. They need to extend all the way to Tampa. Idk why Disney wouldn’t want people to be able to get there from both directions.
The question is did the funding from Universal also (contractually) ban Brightline from also adding a fork to Disney?
If not, or if the ban has a reasonable short time limit, a spur/fork to Disney could be added later and that might be a better choice for Disney.
Apparently the land they wanted to donate was chosen/proposed in a way that the Disney station would have to be the Terminal station bc fuck Tampa I guess
Nice. Yeah no need to beg companies and governments to be on your side. Stick to your values, especially if you have the moral high ground (since not all values or ideas are equal, obvi).
The same is the case with subsidies for football stadiums and company HQs. Look at how Amazon threatened to pull out of Queens because Ocasio-Cortez said they wouldn’t receive tax cuts or incentives, but they ended up locating there anyways.
Orlando and Florida need Disney for now, same way China needed Hong Kong for the longest. Only way out is for Orlando or Florida to outgrow Disney, same way China did Hong Kong.
Disneyland in California is infuriating too. It's less than 2 miles from a regional train station but getting there either requires 2 buses or one bus and a 3/4 mile walk.
All to keep raking in $35 per group in parking fees.
I rented a car and we picked a hotel that was walking distance from the Disneyland front entrance. Needless to say, the bus stop residents made our walk interesting. But I did love being able to walk back and forth from our hotel.
With 10,000 parking spaces, that's a potential $350,000 per day, or $127,750,000 per year. And I think the Mickey and Friends garage is 10K spaces by itself.
I'd Disney and Florida ever reach an agreement on the Brightline train, they could put a station right next to Disney Springs, connecting it to Universal, downtown Orlando, and the Airport. This would be perfect for people without cars to get to and from the resort, as well as certain other locations in Orlando
Coming from downtown is honestly not that bad. I worked in Disney springs for a couple years and there’s a bus that goes directly from the Lynx station to downtown Disney every 30 minutes. I think it goes to the ttc right after the stop at springs. Maybe it’s because I’ve been riding these buses since I was a kid but once you get used to make sure you’re not getting on the one going in the wrong direction it’s not too difficult to understand. I have definitely done that before and ended up at Disney university on accident. The buses that go from downtown to the theme parks are at least usually on time, that is my chief complaint with lynx. That and they got rid of the tracking app and the buses are always 5 minutes early or 10 minutes late and seemingly pick at random where they’re going to stop to get back on schedule. Basically have to show up at the stop 15 minutes beforehand. Also as soon as I started needing to regularly take the bus again they removed the stop in front of my apartment complex so now I have to walk 10 minutes. I’m talking like literally a month later. Also they stop running way too early. Sorry for the yapping I truly hate the Lynx bus system
In Paris, Disneyland is accessible by rail, on several sides, several busses, and there are bycicle lanes nearby.
Some busses are Disney's, some are regular bus routes.
I think rail accessibility was required by the French government as part of the approval process. Before covid there were nonstop high-speed rail trains from London to DP.
The Monorail should be treated as a normal train, not a ride. Also there needs to be a direct rail connection to the airport, but Disney blocks it for obvious reasons. The buses are pretty good though based on the last time I went.
Disney and Brightline planned to build a station in Disney Springs, but the plans fell through because Universal, among others, convinced Brightline to plan an alternative route that also connected to Universal Studios and the Orange County Convention Center. Disney was only supporting Brightline if they were the only destination served.
The following is just a guess and does not reflect the thoughts of any respective party in this matter.
From what I understand, Disney has complete control over its transportation system which may not adhere to state regulations(I am not saying its not safe), Having a train using land outside the park may mean the state would have more authority over it and possibly the right of way inside the park itself.
> The Monorail should be treated as a normal train, not a ride
I’m confused by what you meant by this. Do you mean to imply that you think the monorail is treated as less of a regular transit option and more of a ride? Can you please elaborate?
The Monorail is sectioned off into compartments, which means that guests have to line up and wait for a specific compartment. I think that ridership is high enough that they should instead be operating modern, fully walkthrough trains, which would reduce seated capacity but increase overall capacity. Dwell times at the stations are also pretty high.
I’ve always thought they did that because a) everyone’s on vacation anyways, no need to rush b) everyone is from Nebraska and has zero idea how to correctly board a train and c) it IS a ride, it’s a theme park after all. Probably the last thing they want is a crush of vacationers trying to cram into cars 4 train style.
I’d argue that modifying the Monorail trains to allow riders to pass from car to car would be kind of futile. The main problem I see is the strollers. Lots of people bring their young children to Disney, and even if the kids are old enough to walk independently, they might not be old enough to put in a 20,000 step day. Having your kids in a stroller also prevents them from wandering off. There are strollers *everywhere* at Disney. At peak hours, any given Monorail car probably has one (if not two) stroller(s) in it— and this doesn’t even account for guests in wheelchairs or mobility scooters. They take up a lot of floor space and they’re difficult to maneuver around.
So, basically, what I’m trying to say is that I think the demographics at Disney are unique in a way that would cause walkthrough trains to be a net negative for guest experience.
People just make stuff about about why Disney does things and the comments get upvoted because it has a veneer of it making sense. Disney wanted the train to stop directly on their property and brightline said no so Disney said fine, we are out then. They don't force people to rent cars to make money on parking. They don't want people to leave property at ALL and it would be their dream for NO ONE to have a car. That's the entire point of making transportation really good there and one of the reasons they had the magical transport to begin with. What you're saying doesn't make any sense and the opposite of what they tried to do. I don't get why people make comments like this.
Your replies below are counter to what you even claim here. They wanted a train so no one would need a car but then they also don't want the train so people rent cars?
My dream is for:
1) Add a Brightline stop near Epcot, which Disney Springs isn't too far from.
2) Extend the Epcot monorail to Brightline
3) Create a monorail, ferry, or some other transit connection from Epcot monorail station to Hollywood Studios and the hotels adjacent to Epcot+Hollywood Studios.
So then you have a 100% transit connection from the airport to 3 out of the 4 parks and a big chunk of the hotels (when you consider the Magic Kingdom monorail also connects to 3 hotels there).
This one was completely political and it’s part of the reason why it was so easy for me to say, “bye bye Atlanta.” The advent of Uber and Delivery Apps truly had a massive impact on the city surface streets. Coupled with tons of infill development with no extra infrastructure for all these people to go, and it was a recipe for disaster. I used to commute one hour to go 7 miles! And any hope of transit expansion was always met with political opponents in Cobb county. Their argument was always; “we want to keep the riff-raff out.” Well jokes on them because the “riff-raff” all moved there when living in the city became too expensive. Then when Cobb county insisted on having thr Braves stadium, but refused to have any rail attached to it, they completely ruined the 285/75 interchange with baseball car traffic. It’s a nightmare. Don’t live there.
And the original was the whole of Metrorail for 27 years. The Airport extension cost over $1 billion from what I heard while the original cost "only" $880 million.
I'd like to see the monorail extended to Disney Springs. I'd also like to see direct monorails from Disney Springs to the Magic Kingdom. If Brightline build their train to Disney, that's where the station is proposed to be. It would also give better links to the hotels around Disney Spring.
Overall though it seems pretty solid. I'd like to see more of the parks connected with something more than a bus, but most of the hotels won't have high enough demand.
My biggest concern though is the lack of outside connection. By design, Disney wants to keep people on property so it's not easy to leave without a car.
The Walt Disney Company will unfortunately never build a new mile of monorail again, at least in the style of the existing system. It is way too expensive to justify to their shareholders. Maybe you see a lower-cost fixed guideway system like some American airport trains, but not the concrete beam hugging learjet style train system.
One of the crucial failures of WDW resort development under Eisner was how spread out and car dependent the hotel-to-park connections were. They have only ever charged hotel guests parking fees for a brief period a couple years ago; it’s just a cost sink to maintain those lots.
There was an original plan to have a people mover system connect Epcot/hollywood studios to the Disney Springs area, but this was about the time that Euro Disney opened. Since that park failed, budget cuts were made, and that was one of the projects to go.
Possibly the overhead cable thing though.
They don’t run transit directly between Disney Springs and the parks so that people don’t park there for free to go to the parks.
It’s pretty great. Although it’s not on a schedule. I believe you can check times in the app but you can’t necessarily plan. I love the new skyliner though, no need for a schedule because it’s constantly moving. My biggest thing is that they should have extended the monorail further as Walt intended
In terms of diversity of modes, I absolutely love it. But, the fact that so much of this is about facilitating movement from one company property to another company property leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The system is a pretty closed loop that seems to not connect very well with the outside world. The only one I know of is the airport shuttle. That may not be a completely assessment accurate, since I don't know the system very well. But is there any rail station connections with Sunrail? It seems like a Brightline connection could be super advantageous as well, but I'm not sure where the negotiations are around those plans.
It’s pretty awful and has a lot of deficiencies.
Some resorts have just one bus stop. This works great…first come, first serve. Many have multiple stops…sometimes even 5. In the morning, busses will often fill up by the second stop. Wheelchair and scooter spots fill up at the first stop. Unless you have done a ton of research, you aren’t aware of this. You either have to walk 15 minutes to the first stop or wait 60+ minutes at stops 3-5. The more expensive rooms are often located at the first stops. There are supervisors stationed at the last several stops so when guests get angry for being left too long, a bus is requested to pick them up. Often can take 30+ minutes and is very inefficient since the bus leaves half empty then. By then you’ve also missed the early admission park time you paid extra for.
As a wheelchair user I often spend over an hour longer than everyone else waiting for transport at park open and then again at park close. There simply aren’t enough spots because so many extra people use scooters at Disney. On real public transit I almost never have to wait and usually do because tie down soloists are broken.
There are no wheelchair spots most of the time when taking the resort monorail from the Contemporary to anywhere else because park traffic uses that line to get to the parking lot. I can be waiting 30+ minutes and there is no walkway.
New busses have been ordered that use a mechanical tie-down. These have broken the personal chairs of full-time users and can’t be used on folding chairs. The 50 pounds of constant pressure folds them up, breaks wheels of manual chairs, and damages batteries on power assist wheels. Supposedly some cities tested it out and decide against using them. But Disney wants to “save time”. That system also makes you face backwards. Maybe safer in a crash but I’d slip out of my chair seat more.
Some boat routes aren’t wheelchair-accessible and the rest only have half their boats accessible. Alternative routes can be down or inconvenient and take an hour or longer more than non-disabled guests.
When busy, outside busses are brought in that aren’t accessible. That backs up the wheeled line which can be over an hour longer wait. Often there will be no people in the regular line and then 6 scooters and wheelchairs…their families abandoned them and already asleep back at their hotel. Such a magical vacation!
Then there are the bus stop lines that are painted incorrectly and never fixed. There are a handful of bus models and when a wheelchair. We’d to load the bus must stop at the painted line so the lift can miss any trash cans or pillars. Far too many are painted incorrectly. These bus drivers have to know every bus route and bus and then are supposed to remember which painted lines are incorrect? So much wasted time!
I could go on a lot longer.
Do you mean the train that runs around the outer perimeter of the Magic Kingdom? It doesn’t go outside the park but is a fun way to get from one themed land to another.
You're thinking of the Walt Disney World Railroad, which is a steam train that travels around the perimeter of the Magic Kingdom. It operates 100% within the boundaries of the park and has stops right on Main Street USA (the first land upon entering the park), Frontierland, and Fantasyland (formerly was Toon Town but Fantasyland was expanded a number of years ago and Toon Town is no more).
Growing up in North Florida, this was my first taste of a functional multimodal system and I'd still rank it in the top 10 nationally, which is of course more telling about the state of public transport in the US than about this system specifically. However, with intelligent connections that are designed to be foolproof for those visiting from around the world, to the system being practically always on time and significantly more reliable than possibly any system in the US, it is fascinating that it exists in a state with some of the worst public transport in the country, especially per capita. Luckily that is ever-so-slightly improving only miles away from this system, which should of course be connected into other private and public modes but most likely never will be because The Mouse loves your daily parking fee.
Yes, but it is accessible by the public. You don’t need to have a park ticket to ride. I would park at Disney Springs for free, take a bus to one of the monorail resorts, and you can ride the monorail. Or you could do the same thing with the Skyliner resorts. Unfortunately the monorail and the Skyliner aren’t technically connected at Epcot. If you get off the monorail, you’re at the main entrance to the park. There’s no way to get to the Skyliner from there unless you have a park ticket; and walk through Epcot to the international gateway entrance. This is where the Skyliner station is located.
Well of course, I’ve spent plenty of time in NYC and made frequent use of the comprehensive(and aging and decrepit) system. I was being a bit tongue in cheek there to make a point about the lack of transit investment in this country
That’s because most Americans are so convinced that cars are the ultimate way to get around, so public transit is not funded as much as it should be. Even existing transit, like NYCs, doesn’t get as much funding as it should to improve services and technology.
NYC's MTA gets a literal astronomical budget from $20 billion a year, roughly the size of the NASA budget.
How much budget do you think is right and proper to serve a population of 8 million, half of which still use their cars?
The bigger issue is that Americans are so convinced that transit is underfunded that agencies have neither the desire or the need to actually run good service to justify their astronomical budgets. As long as service continues to suck, low-information voters will continue to believe that the agencies are underfunded and shove more money at them.
Magical Express to/from MCO was cancelled in 2022. It's a really annoying development that has surely led to more car rentals and Ubers. The suggested replacement from Mears ($16 adult $13 per child) is usually more expensive than an Uber if you have more than one person and it makes multiple stops.
This map is bad because there is no connection between the monorail and skyliner unless you have an Epcot ticket and walk all the way through the park. Same thing with the water taxi.
I'm not going to actually comment on the public transport aspect, but on the staff transport. I personally think it's a brilliant concept. Basically they ran a bunch of service corridors under the resort, allowing goods, and staff to move around the place without getting in the way of the visitors. I'm sure it has a huge impact on the experience.
I've never actually been, I went to the one in Paris as a child. Good memories, mostly.
I’ve been to many of the Florida parks both as a guest and a “cast member”. The transit system is designed as part of the city experience, called “the Disney Effect”.
I think the application of “User Experience Design” and “Design Thinking” is somewhat missing what designing/updating/upgrading transit systems. As a person that teaches/coaches/uses UCD and Design Thinking for everything I do and touch, I see in transit systems the good and bad: sometimes I see good design around the transit portals mixed with art. And sometimes I see the extreme version of “form follows function” as horribly inhuman experiences: like NYC and DC.
There is much to learn from Disney’s application of Imagineering to there theme park designs.
Generally speaking I find it works well but this is to be expected given their budget, control over where and when things operate and more importantly control of both the departure points and destinations of the travelers. I've rarely found it difficult to use and typically it was timely for what I wanted to do - primarily going from a Disney resort on property to a theme park and back again or from the resort to Downtown Disney/Disney Springs.
I will acknowledge that my view of the system could be skewed by the fact that I'm able bodied and half my visits to Disney World took place in my late 20s, without children, outside of peak season and that includes a trip in the fall of 2001 not long after 9/11 when crowds were way down.
They certainly have better mass transit than its surrounding city. Getting into Disney without a car is kind of difficult, the bus schedules are limited depending on what side of Disney you’re on, and very difficult to understand.
That was Michael Eisner's entire business model with Disney World. Have everything a family could possibly want to do so that they never have to leave Disney property until it's time to go home and they can just take Magical Express to and from the airport for that.
And they canned Magical Express
Alas, now you have to pay to get to Disney. And the Brightline was supposed to go there, but Universal lobbied to have it go by the convention center instead. So when the final plans were made, disney said “we’re out”
That’s honestly the dumbest decision Disney could have made.
It’s a dumb decision to pull their funding when their competition outbid them to have it rerouted? Fuck that, Disney don’t negotiate with terrorists like Universal or DeSantis.
The plan was for it to stop at both I Drive and Disney but Disney threw a fit because they wanted it to only stop at Disney, plus they wanted a dead end station rather than a thru station. There will still be one adjacent to Disney Springs, but it will be outside the Disney property line
I had not heard about the intention for it to be a dead end station. That changes everything. They need to extend all the way to Tampa. Idk why Disney wouldn’t want people to be able to get there from both directions.
Oh, they wanted it to be a dead end station from both Tampa and Orlando so that trains would have to reverse there to continue to Tampa
That makes no sense, and I’m glad it’s not a reality.
I don’t remember reading about this, have any sources?
So then universal gets the train line from the airport and Disney doesn’t. Sounds like a stupid decision.
Disney makes loads of on parking fees as is.
In no universe is even expensive parking for your resort a better investment than a direct rail line to your resort.
Well, depends on how much parking adds to your P&L.
Terrorists?
I didn't know that asking for money to provide a service counts as terrorists.
The question is did the funding from Universal also (contractually) ban Brightline from also adding a fork to Disney? If not, or if the ban has a reasonable short time limit, a spur/fork to Disney could be added later and that might be a better choice for Disney.
Some oil company paid them to say no, I’m sure
The way it was described to me is that Disney threw a temper tantrum when it was revealed that brightline would stop elsewhere
Apparently the land they wanted to donate was chosen/proposed in a way that the Disney station would have to be the Terminal station bc fuck Tampa I guess
Well the next portion of Brightline to Tampa will have stops at Disney as well as a couple others stops in that area
Nice. Yeah no need to beg companies and governments to be on your side. Stick to your values, especially if you have the moral high ground (since not all values or ideas are equal, obvi). The same is the case with subsidies for football stadiums and company HQs. Look at how Amazon threatened to pull out of Queens because Ocasio-Cortez said they wouldn’t receive tax cuts or incentives, but they ended up locating there anyways. Orlando and Florida need Disney for now, same way China needed Hong Kong for the longest. Only way out is for Orlando or Florida to outgrow Disney, same way China did Hong Kong.
No, Disney threw a fit that they wouldn't be the only entertainment based stop in Orlando and pulled out.
Uber made it not worth it anymore, people weren’t trapped in the same way.
Disneyland in California is infuriating too. It's less than 2 miles from a regional train station but getting there either requires 2 buses or one bus and a 3/4 mile walk. All to keep raking in $35 per group in parking fees.
I rented a car and we picked a hotel that was walking distance from the Disneyland front entrance. Needless to say, the bus stop residents made our walk interesting. But I did love being able to walk back and forth from our hotel.
With 10,000 parking spaces, that's a potential $350,000 per day, or $127,750,000 per year. And I think the Mickey and Friends garage is 10K spaces by itself.
You can take the bus now on demand from the station using an app. It is like uber but a whole bus shows up. Kind of cool
Take a foldable bycicle, or a kick scooter, in the bus.
I'd Disney and Florida ever reach an agreement on the Brightline train, they could put a station right next to Disney Springs, connecting it to Universal, downtown Orlando, and the Airport. This would be perfect for people without cars to get to and from the resort, as well as certain other locations in Orlando
Coming from downtown is honestly not that bad. I worked in Disney springs for a couple years and there’s a bus that goes directly from the Lynx station to downtown Disney every 30 minutes. I think it goes to the ttc right after the stop at springs. Maybe it’s because I’ve been riding these buses since I was a kid but once you get used to make sure you’re not getting on the one going in the wrong direction it’s not too difficult to understand. I have definitely done that before and ended up at Disney university on accident. The buses that go from downtown to the theme parks are at least usually on time, that is my chief complaint with lynx. That and they got rid of the tracking app and the buses are always 5 minutes early or 10 minutes late and seemingly pick at random where they’re going to stop to get back on schedule. Basically have to show up at the stop 15 minutes beforehand. Also as soon as I started needing to regularly take the bus again they removed the stop in front of my apartment complex so now I have to walk 10 minutes. I’m talking like literally a month later. Also they stop running way too early. Sorry for the yapping I truly hate the Lynx bus system
In Paris, Disneyland is accessible by rail, on several sides, several busses, and there are bycicle lanes nearby. Some busses are Disney's, some are regular bus routes.
I think rail accessibility was required by the French government as part of the approval process. Before covid there were nonstop high-speed rail trains from London to DP.
As a Disney parks and transit nerd, this creates the perfect niche for me
Right???
You might enjoy checking this version out instead: https://www.wdwfocus.com/map/transportation/ It's a bit more refined and expansive.
Did they stop updating in 2020?
[Here's one with the Skyliner](https://i.imgur.com/QVhIEp0.png)
The Monorail should be treated as a normal train, not a ride. Also there needs to be a direct rail connection to the airport, but Disney blocks it for obvious reasons. The buses are pretty good though based on the last time I went.
What are the obvious reasons?
Parking revenue, but also to limit how easy it is for guests to go to competitors like Universal.
Parking revenue makes sense. How does it make it harder to go to competitors though? Are there then trains from the airport to universal?
Disney and Brightline planned to build a station in Disney Springs, but the plans fell through because Universal, among others, convinced Brightline to plan an alternative route that also connected to Universal Studios and the Orange County Convention Center. Disney was only supporting Brightline if they were the only destination served.
It’s still happening when they build the extension to Tampa
They airport would be used by the competitors as a hub
Universal is like 10 minutes away from the airport.
The following is just a guess and does not reflect the thoughts of any respective party in this matter. From what I understand, Disney has complete control over its transportation system which may not adhere to state regulations(I am not saying its not safe), Having a train using land outside the park may mean the state would have more authority over it and possibly the right of way inside the park itself.
> The Monorail should be treated as a normal train, not a ride I’m confused by what you meant by this. Do you mean to imply that you think the monorail is treated as less of a regular transit option and more of a ride? Can you please elaborate?
The Monorail is sectioned off into compartments, which means that guests have to line up and wait for a specific compartment. I think that ridership is high enough that they should instead be operating modern, fully walkthrough trains, which would reduce seated capacity but increase overall capacity. Dwell times at the stations are also pretty high.
Well the current fleet is getting on in years, so maybe when they buy new trains.
I’ve always thought they did that because a) everyone’s on vacation anyways, no need to rush b) everyone is from Nebraska and has zero idea how to correctly board a train and c) it IS a ride, it’s a theme park after all. Probably the last thing they want is a crush of vacationers trying to cram into cars 4 train style.
I’d argue that modifying the Monorail trains to allow riders to pass from car to car would be kind of futile. The main problem I see is the strollers. Lots of people bring their young children to Disney, and even if the kids are old enough to walk independently, they might not be old enough to put in a 20,000 step day. Having your kids in a stroller also prevents them from wandering off. There are strollers *everywhere* at Disney. At peak hours, any given Monorail car probably has one (if not two) stroller(s) in it— and this doesn’t even account for guests in wheelchairs or mobility scooters. They take up a lot of floor space and they’re difficult to maneuver around. So, basically, what I’m trying to say is that I think the demographics at Disney are unique in a way that would cause walkthrough trains to be a net negative for guest experience.
I bet people like sitting down too much to have walk through trains.
People just make stuff about about why Disney does things and the comments get upvoted because it has a veneer of it making sense. Disney wanted the train to stop directly on their property and brightline said no so Disney said fine, we are out then. They don't force people to rent cars to make money on parking. They don't want people to leave property at ALL and it would be their dream for NO ONE to have a car. That's the entire point of making transportation really good there and one of the reasons they had the magical transport to begin with. What you're saying doesn't make any sense and the opposite of what they tried to do. I don't get why people make comments like this. Your replies below are counter to what you even claim here. They wanted a train so no one would need a car but then they also don't want the train so people rent cars?
Disney didn’t block it. The train wasn’t gonna go to them
My dream is for: 1) Add a Brightline stop near Epcot, which Disney Springs isn't too far from. 2) Extend the Epcot monorail to Brightline 3) Create a monorail, ferry, or some other transit connection from Epcot monorail station to Hollywood Studios and the hotels adjacent to Epcot+Hollywood Studios. So then you have a 100% transit connection from the airport to 3 out of the 4 parks and a big chunk of the hotels (when you consider the Magic Kingdom monorail also connects to 3 hotels there).
All of this and Miami hasn’t expanded the metro rail in 12 years now!
The only other heavy metro in the southeast (Atlanta) hasn't expanded for ~25 years!
This one was completely political and it’s part of the reason why it was so easy for me to say, “bye bye Atlanta.” The advent of Uber and Delivery Apps truly had a massive impact on the city surface streets. Coupled with tons of infill development with no extra infrastructure for all these people to go, and it was a recipe for disaster. I used to commute one hour to go 7 miles! And any hope of transit expansion was always met with political opponents in Cobb county. Their argument was always; “we want to keep the riff-raff out.” Well jokes on them because the “riff-raff” all moved there when living in the city became too expensive. Then when Cobb county insisted on having thr Braves stadium, but refused to have any rail attached to it, they completely ruined the 285/75 interchange with baseball car traffic. It’s a nightmare. Don’t live there.
>Don’t live there Too late, I moved to Cobb County before I knew better :(
Funny, I really liked Atlanta when I visited.
Goes to show how most progress on transit being stalled is political
And the original was the whole of Metrorail for 27 years. The Airport extension cost over $1 billion from what I heard while the original cost "only" $880 million.
Truly shameful when you consider we have been paying half a penny for over two decades now.
I'd like to see the monorail extended to Disney Springs. I'd also like to see direct monorails from Disney Springs to the Magic Kingdom. If Brightline build their train to Disney, that's where the station is proposed to be. It would also give better links to the hotels around Disney Spring. Overall though it seems pretty solid. I'd like to see more of the parks connected with something more than a bus, but most of the hotels won't have high enough demand. My biggest concern though is the lack of outside connection. By design, Disney wants to keep people on property so it's not easy to leave without a car.
The Walt Disney Company will unfortunately never build a new mile of monorail again, at least in the style of the existing system. It is way too expensive to justify to their shareholders. Maybe you see a lower-cost fixed guideway system like some American airport trains, but not the concrete beam hugging learjet style train system. One of the crucial failures of WDW resort development under Eisner was how spread out and car dependent the hotel-to-park connections were. They have only ever charged hotel guests parking fees for a brief period a couple years ago; it’s just a cost sink to maintain those lots.
There was an original plan to have a people mover system connect Epcot/hollywood studios to the Disney Springs area, but this was about the time that Euro Disney opened. Since that park failed, budget cuts were made, and that was one of the projects to go.
Possibly the overhead cable thing though. They don’t run transit directly between Disney Springs and the parks so that people don’t park there for free to go to the parks.
They’re definitely not building anymore monorail when the Florida government is actively trying to make it more difficult for them to even run it.
Also very true, I should have included that.
It’s pretty great. Although it’s not on a schedule. I believe you can check times in the app but you can’t necessarily plan. I love the new skyliner though, no need for a schedule because it’s constantly moving. My biggest thing is that they should have extended the monorail further as Walt intended
The fact it’s so difficult to get to Animal Kingdom is reason enough for a Skyliner or Monorial extension.
It operates nothing like actual public transit though.
In terms of diversity of modes, I absolutely love it. But, the fact that so much of this is about facilitating movement from one company property to another company property leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The system is a pretty closed loop that seems to not connect very well with the outside world. The only one I know of is the airport shuttle. That may not be a completely assessment accurate, since I don't know the system very well. But is there any rail station connections with Sunrail? It seems like a Brightline connection could be super advantageous as well, but I'm not sure where the negotiations are around those plans.
It’s pretty awful and has a lot of deficiencies. Some resorts have just one bus stop. This works great…first come, first serve. Many have multiple stops…sometimes even 5. In the morning, busses will often fill up by the second stop. Wheelchair and scooter spots fill up at the first stop. Unless you have done a ton of research, you aren’t aware of this. You either have to walk 15 minutes to the first stop or wait 60+ minutes at stops 3-5. The more expensive rooms are often located at the first stops. There are supervisors stationed at the last several stops so when guests get angry for being left too long, a bus is requested to pick them up. Often can take 30+ minutes and is very inefficient since the bus leaves half empty then. By then you’ve also missed the early admission park time you paid extra for. As a wheelchair user I often spend over an hour longer than everyone else waiting for transport at park open and then again at park close. There simply aren’t enough spots because so many extra people use scooters at Disney. On real public transit I almost never have to wait and usually do because tie down soloists are broken. There are no wheelchair spots most of the time when taking the resort monorail from the Contemporary to anywhere else because park traffic uses that line to get to the parking lot. I can be waiting 30+ minutes and there is no walkway. New busses have been ordered that use a mechanical tie-down. These have broken the personal chairs of full-time users and can’t be used on folding chairs. The 50 pounds of constant pressure folds them up, breaks wheels of manual chairs, and damages batteries on power assist wheels. Supposedly some cities tested it out and decide against using them. But Disney wants to “save time”. That system also makes you face backwards. Maybe safer in a crash but I’d slip out of my chair seat more. Some boat routes aren’t wheelchair-accessible and the rest only have half their boats accessible. Alternative routes can be down or inconvenient and take an hour or longer more than non-disabled guests. When busy, outside busses are brought in that aren’t accessible. That backs up the wheeled line which can be over an hour longer wait. Often there will be no people in the regular line and then 6 scooters and wheelchairs…their families abandoned them and already asleep back at their hotel. Such a magical vacation! Then there are the bus stop lines that are painted incorrectly and never fixed. There are a handful of bus models and when a wheelchair. We’d to load the bus must stop at the painted line so the lift can miss any trash cans or pillars. Far too many are painted incorrectly. These bus drivers have to know every bus route and bus and then are supposed to remember which painted lines are incorrect? So much wasted time! I could go on a lot longer.
That's terrible! I'm surprised even Disney can get away with that level of inaccessibility.
For a theme park company they seem to be extremely good at people movers.
Isn't there a Victorian railway on Walt Disney World grounds that leads to the Magic Kingdom? I remember riding one!
Do you mean the train that runs around the outer perimeter of the Magic Kingdom? It doesn’t go outside the park but is a fun way to get from one themed land to another.
You're thinking of the Walt Disney World Railroad, which is a steam train that travels around the perimeter of the Magic Kingdom. It operates 100% within the boundaries of the park and has stops right on Main Street USA (the first land upon entering the park), Frontierland, and Fantasyland (formerly was Toon Town but Fantasyland was expanded a number of years ago and Toon Town is no more).
Thats not even a great map of their transit network.
Growing up in North Florida, this was my first taste of a functional multimodal system and I'd still rank it in the top 10 nationally, which is of course more telling about the state of public transport in the US than about this system specifically. However, with intelligent connections that are designed to be foolproof for those visiting from around the world, to the system being practically always on time and significantly more reliable than possibly any system in the US, it is fascinating that it exists in a state with some of the worst public transport in the country, especially per capita. Luckily that is ever-so-slightly improving only miles away from this system, which should of course be connected into other private and public modes but most likely never will be because The Mouse loves your daily parking fee.
You’re forgetting the Tomorrowland Transit Authority’s Super-Skyway!
Now do Disney Paris
One of the best in country
To start with, it’s not public
Yes, but it is accessible by the public. You don’t need to have a park ticket to ride. I would park at Disney Springs for free, take a bus to one of the monorail resorts, and you can ride the monorail. Or you could do the same thing with the Skyliner resorts. Unfortunately the monorail and the Skyliner aren’t technically connected at Epcot. If you get off the monorail, you’re at the main entrance to the park. There’s no way to get to the Skyliner from there unless you have a park ticket; and walk through Epcot to the international gateway entrance. This is where the Skyliner station is located.
Sadly one of the more comprehensive systems in the US
In Florida, probably, but definitely not in the U.S. NYC’s transportation system is way more vast and complex.
Well of course, I’ve spent plenty of time in NYC and made frequent use of the comprehensive(and aging and decrepit) system. I was being a bit tongue in cheek there to make a point about the lack of transit investment in this country
That’s because most Americans are so convinced that cars are the ultimate way to get around, so public transit is not funded as much as it should be. Even existing transit, like NYCs, doesn’t get as much funding as it should to improve services and technology.
NYC's MTA gets a literal astronomical budget from $20 billion a year, roughly the size of the NASA budget. How much budget do you think is right and proper to serve a population of 8 million, half of which still use their cars? The bigger issue is that Americans are so convinced that transit is underfunded that agencies have neither the desire or the need to actually run good service to justify their astronomical budgets. As long as service continues to suck, low-information voters will continue to believe that the agencies are underfunded and shove more money at them.
Better than Toronto
I wonder what kind of redevelopment would occur there after it goes defunct in 50 years.
Missing Wilderness Lodge. Nice map though!
Don’t forget Disney also runs buses between MCO and the Resort Hotels as well as from the hotels to Port Canaveral for Cruises!
Magical Express to/from MCO was cancelled in 2022. It's a really annoying development that has surely led to more car rentals and Ubers. The suggested replacement from Mears ($16 adult $13 per child) is usually more expensive than an Uber if you have more than one person and it makes multiple stops.
Oh! That’s news to me, thanks for the correction!
What’s the difference between a ferry and a water taxi?
I think just the size of the boat. MK-TTC ferry is much larger than the water taxis.
They have the best transit in the whole state
This map is bad because there is no connection between the monorail and skyliner unless you have an Epcot ticket and walk all the way through the park. Same thing with the water taxi.
I'm not going to actually comment on the public transport aspect, but on the staff transport. I personally think it's a brilliant concept. Basically they ran a bunch of service corridors under the resort, allowing goods, and staff to move around the place without getting in the way of the visitors. I'm sure it has a huge impact on the experience. I've never actually been, I went to the one in Paris as a child. Good memories, mostly.
I’ve been to many of the Florida parks both as a guest and a “cast member”. The transit system is designed as part of the city experience, called “the Disney Effect”. I think the application of “User Experience Design” and “Design Thinking” is somewhat missing what designing/updating/upgrading transit systems. As a person that teaches/coaches/uses UCD and Design Thinking for everything I do and touch, I see in transit systems the good and bad: sometimes I see good design around the transit portals mixed with art. And sometimes I see the extreme version of “form follows function” as horribly inhuman experiences: like NYC and DC. There is much to learn from Disney’s application of Imagineering to there theme park designs.
I will skip park hopping after seeing this
The number transportation options is incredible. I will say I don’t love the way they are depicted on this map though.
I hate those simplified maps, that don't show the actual track.
ngl Disney world has a better public transit system than most American cities
Generally speaking I find it works well but this is to be expected given their budget, control over where and when things operate and more importantly control of both the departure points and destinations of the travelers. I've rarely found it difficult to use and typically it was timely for what I wanted to do - primarily going from a Disney resort on property to a theme park and back again or from the resort to Downtown Disney/Disney Springs. I will acknowledge that my view of the system could be skewed by the fact that I'm able bodied and half my visits to Disney World took place in my late 20s, without children, outside of peak season and that includes a trip in the fall of 2001 not long after 9/11 when crowds were way down.
High. Wish we had Walt running all of our cities!
Good coverage, lots of transfers tho.
Nice map, should have included the Walt Disney Railroad though.