MAGIC KINGDOM TRANSPO - Perhaps it’s the “transportation nerd” in me, but when I was at an otherwise-delightful weekend at Disneyland with my family (boy, do they do things up for Halloween!), I couldn’t help but notice that there are some exciting new rides, and some innovatively-redone old rides, at Disneyland’s Magic Kingdom and California Adventure theme parks. After doing a bit of research, it became clear there were some interesting trends—but first, let’s get a few “rides we won’t see but wish we could” out of the way:
1) The knock-some-sense-into-the-heads-of-parents-forcing-their-small-children-onto-age-inappropriate-attractions ride:
I suppose that this could be thrown into the same category as the morons who bring their small children to R-rated movies, but this is a ride where (creating an exception to the ban on corporal punishment) we paddle the bottoms of parents who severely need it. That includes YOU, Mr. Drags-His-Screaming-And-Squirming-4-Year-Old-Boy-Onto-Big-Thunder-Mountain!
2) “The Line” Ride:
Inspired by an old South Park episode, where waiting in line was itself the ride, this would be an opportunity to get the lines out of the way at “Disneyline” and wait 1-2 hours, “pay your dues” and then be able to waltz into every attraction without the obligatory 45-90 minute wait.
3) The get-your-rear-end-to-the-park-at-opening-time ride:
The key to enjoying Disneyland is to absolutely (without fail or excuses!) get there when the parks open. This ride entails having paid Disneyland employees barge into your home or hotel room, pick you bodily up and then throw you into the park at opening time (and not a nanosecond later!) to enjoy the 5-15 minute lines that exist at such a time. After 10-11 am, one can easily have seen the critical rides and either catch a show or shop…or go back to the house or hotel room and pass out.
4) The “House of Credit Card Shock” ride:
Spending with reckless abandon at the Happiest Place on Earth is worth it with respect to family memories that last a lifetime, but there’s a price all ride. The Happiest Place on Earth ain’t The Cheapest Place on Earth, and there are fortunately well-placed defibrillators all over the park for those who either have heart problems or who finally do the mental math and figure out what their credit card bill is going to be.
5) An Expanded Monorail System:
And now we get serious. There’s a reason that Anaheim and Disneyland concluded that the better part of a billion dollars wasn’t the best way to go with respect to transporting riders from the future high-tech Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC) to Disneyland via an elevated monorail. Instead, the city and Disneyland are leaning towards a $319 million streetcar line to do the trick.
Unfortunately, Orange County decided NOT to pursue an Orange County Centerline light rail line from Disneyland to South Coast Plaza, the Orange County governmental offices and Metrolink station in Santa Ana, John Wayne Airport and the Irvine Spectrum, so Disneyland and other cities are learning the hard way that the need for rail to complement freeways and roads and buses is essential for an urban county like Orange County (yes, my Orange County neighbors…you’re urban!).
Also unfortunately, the capacity of Disneyland monorail cars is about a third to a fourth of light rail cars, so the otherwise-fun-and-admirable 1950’s-era endeavor of Disneyland monorail is about half a century behind where it otherwise could be, or should be, with respect to rail technology.
So we’ll see more buses and street cars, which is fine, but considering the long lines of people still willing to wait for the monorail trains (despite the frequent monorail train breakdowns and the quicker time it took to just walk to one’s destination at Disneyland), trains are definitely preferred by both transit-dependent and transit-choice riders alike.
This is a key issue to consider, either for Disneyland or for the greater issue of urban transportation in general, because buses are cheaper to set up and are more flexible for routing than trains, but going with riders’ and tourists’ preferences is as much the American way as going with commuters’ preferences for driving cars or bicycling. Furthermore, the operating costs for a train cheaper than buses (with fewer trains and paid operators than buses), it’s probably more cost-effective.
And with the demand for a third Disneyland theme park limited by the tremendous transportation problem of accessing Disneyland, both remote parking and remote transit access will be issues that keep economists, transportation experts and urban planners all being taken for a ride to that Magic Kingdom of Mobility…to which we all strive for in our journey through Cars Land.
(Ken Alpern is a former Boardmember of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected]. He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 85
Pub: Oct 23, 2012