Disney Skyliner cabins are starting to arrive at Disney World. Image from WDW News Today.
Construction works for the upcoming Disney Skyliner cable cars has reached an exciting milestone this week as the first wave of cabins were spotted on the back of a truck at the world’s most visited entertainment complex.
For those who have not followed this project, the Skyliners are a network of three gondola lines that were first announced last July. The system is presumed to be built by Doppelmayr given what is clearly an Omega cabin depicted above. The 5km (3mi) of aerial lifts broke ground in June 2017 and are scheduled to open by mid-2019 (i.e. a construction period of approximately two years).
They are designed to improve transport connectivity between two theme parks (i.e. Epcot and Hollywood Studios) and four resorts (i.e. Caribbean Beach, Art of Animation, Pop Century and the upcoming Riviera Resort).
Conceptual drawings of Skyliner released by Disney in July 2017. Image from Disney Tourist Blog.
Aerial image of construction progress (May 2018) of the Caribbean Beach Resort station. This station will be the main hub of the three gondola lines. Image from Ziggy Knows Disney.
As expected, the project has received little attention outside Disney news media and has been basically ignored by the urban planning community. This of course is not surprising since many Disney projects are often brushed off as a perverse form of “real” city planning and is not meant to be taken seriously. It is also not far from the truth to say modern-day urbanists have a strong distaste for the artificiality of “Disney-style planning”.
Whether planners agree with the aesthetics of Disney World, there is a strong possibility for the Skyliners to not only become preeminent case studies of how to integrate ropeways in transit networks but to hold valuable lessons for future ropeway planning.
We know this might sound a little far-fetched but let us explain.
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