With the Disney Skyliner now less than one month away from opening at Walt Disney World, now is a good time to revisit the January 2013 post I made suggesting a Gondola network would be an effective and affordable solution to a growing need for… Read More »Disney Skyliner Gondola network opening soon at Walt Disney World
It’s official. Disney’s pocket government in Florida, the Reedy Creek Water District, has filed paperwork confirming plans to build a three lines, six station, Aerial Tramway, also known as a gondola system. The system will connect Disney’s Hollywood Studios to EPCOT with additional lines to… Read More »Confirmed: Disney building Gondola aerial transportation system
This week crazy-like-a-fox billionaire businessman Elon Musk introduced his latest revolutionary concept, the Hyperloop, and then gave it away to the masses as an open source project. Musk’s previous successes include Paypal (without which much online transactions wouldn’t happen), Tesla (an electric car company that’s profitable for a change), SpaceX (a private company that is helping NASA get payloads into space with an eventual goal of Mars(!)), and SolarCity (affordable solar panels for home and business; It remains to be seen if this will fall into the success category, but it seems likely with a net positive in the profit column last quarter).
Hollywood director Jon Favreau has said he modeled his version of Tony Stark, aka Marvel’s Iron Man, at least in part after Musk. But I think Tony Stark is the wrong model. Musk reminds me more of late period Walt Disney, when Walt had his eye on the future, not just of entertainment and the Disney Company, but of the planet as a whole and improving the lives of those who live on it. His gained steam with Monorails (mass transit), moved onto PeopleMovers (person rapid transit (PRT)), and dabbled in energy efficiency and recycling. Then Walt united all his theories and took on the mother of all urban planning projects – EPCOT, the experimental prototype community of tomorrow. With EPCOT, Walt wanted to build a working community where he could partner with industrial explorers with a similar vision for the future.
That is essentially the same vision as Elon Musk; which is why I think there is a natural partnership between Musk, his companies, and The Walt Disney Company. To get started, create the partnership for the purposes of building a working prototype of the Hyperloop at Walt Disney World. Musk, or his team, would be involved enough to oversee things, but most of the R&D would be left to Walt Disney Imagineering. The resulting prototype would be a great first step to making a full scale Hyperloop a feasible project to get past local and state governments.
Disney’s Imagineers already have much of the expertise needed to build such a system. They have experience with air-bearings (from the Flying Saucers ride in 60s to the revisited version at DCA), mass transit systems (Monorail, PeopleMover, etc.) and for years they used a garbage disposal system at the Magic Kingdom that magically whisked away trash right from the curb side down an air pressure driven pipe. They also have good contacts in the coaster and mass transit construction industries, so finding suppliers would not be difficult. Read More »Bring to Walt Disney World: The Hyperloop
Shanghai Disneyland is being built a bit off the beaten track, but relatively close to a major freeway that helps outline the future expansion for the city. It was just announced that Shanghai’s Metro (a system of mass transit that includes Subway, Light Rail, and… Read More »Shanghai Disneyland to get Exclusive Metro Line
Walt Disney, I think everyone can agree, was a visionary. His desire to see an America connected by a series of high speed trains, monorails, and people mover systems was given proof of concept by his theme park experiments and plans for the City of… Read More »Orlando Mass Transit Map is Murky
President Obama mentioned the high speed rail project that will run from Tampa to the Orlando International Airport in the State Of The Union tonight. The project will get about 50% of the funding it needs from the federal stimulus package, with the rest, it’s… Read More »Florida’s High Speed Rail to stop at Disney World
The Las Vegas monorail, which at one time used old Walt Disney World trains, has run into some financial troubles. That’s to be expected with the slowdown of tourism in the town. The bankruptcy will put a stop to the planned expansion of the line… Read More »Las Vegas Monorail Woes
I’m getting a lot of reports about the troubles Disney had with the Magic Kingdom monorail system this weekend. Turns out the worst was some inconvenience for guests that Disney could have handled better. However, they’re really playing with fire. I have a report from… Read More »The Monorail Troubles