Well, that was fun.......not

Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder

This morning, my wife and I decided to go to Downtown Disney, do some shopping, get lunch somewhere, probably ESPN (and not use my debit card), watch football, go home. We're home now, having done none of those things.

Unless there was some sort of major disturbance in the Downtown Disney lot off of Magic Way, Disney has its collective head up its a$$ when it comes to non-theme park parking.

Around 9:50 a.m. we got off the 5 south at Disneyland Drive and wanted to turn on Magic Way to park at the usual DTD parking area. Nope, blocked off from making a right turn, although opposing traffic was making lefts on Magic Way. By the time we inched to the light, we were allowed to turn right, but once we got near the left turn lane for DTD parking, saw that it was blocked off. Mind you, we could clearly see cars in the DTD lot. It didn't appear to be even half full. We were all funneled to the DL Hotel where we made a U-turn.

Back on Magic Way, and saw they wanted everyone in the LEFT lane, to turn left on Disney Way. Too late to do anything about that, what with the line of cars, and we couldn't figure out where that line was eventually going, although it had to be going behind DCA near Katella, possibly across Harbor Blvd., which would have been about as asinine as it gets seeing as how we just wanted to go to Downtown Disney. We turned right on Katella, right on Walnut, then right on Magic Way and saw things were still blocked off. Screw it, we said, they apparently don't want our business if it's this challenging just to friggin' park. Back home we went.

We didn't want to park at DTD to avoid paying to go to DL as so many others do. We just wanted to got to DTD. Again, unless something happened in the DTD lot, and we could see no evidence of that, this was am incredibly piss poor effort at traffic or crowd control.

 

Originally Posted By FerretAfros

That's really strange. I've encountered several times in the last few years when they direct all DTD traffic to the Simba Lot south of the PPH, but it sounds like they were doing something else entirely here. I wonder if there's some sort of special event at the DLH convention center that requires some additional parking space. I know that they'll need some of the space in the Lilo lot which is rarely used anyway (going through the DTD toll booths, it's on the right side) for the Star Wars Half Marathon events in 2 weeks, but I can't imagine they're already setting up for that

My guess is that they're doing it to deter folks from parking there to go to the parks, since it was early in the morning. It sounds like the way they were directing you would send you to the Toy Story Lot, which just doesn't make any sense for someone visiting DTD. It sounds like a good decision to not give them your business. They certainly didn't seem like they wanted it

 

Originally Posted By SuperDry

Call Guest Services and ask for an explanation. If they don't have a specific answer as to what happened on that day, ask what you are supposed to do the next time that happens and you want to visit DTD.

 

Originally Posted By RoadTrip

Although it does not exempt the apparently poor Disney traffic control, it would take a true Disney addict to attempt to visit a Disney facility on a Holiday weekend. Like there is nowhere else in Los Angeles to eat? Having tried most of the places in DTD Anaheim, I tend to think you could find better with far fewer traffic hassles.

 

Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder

"Call Guest Services and ask for an explanation. If they don't have a specific answer as to what happened on that day, ask what you are supposed to do the next time that happens and you want to visit DTD."

Later in the day, since no one on LP offered an explanation my wife DID call as she began to stew about the whole thing since it was her idea to go and the last time we went, December 18 in the evening, they were doing the same thing even though again, the DTD lot was at least half empty.

Guest Services response was "We can get back to you, but we are unaware of any issues as this is the first we have heard of it". So my wife said, yes, please get back to me. So far, nothing.

I'll reiterate what I said before. These re-routing decisions might make sense to SOMEBODY, but that somebody is well, an idiot. The residual traffic congestion alone is a nightmare.

There's another thread about expansion here somewhere and the comment was made that essentially the existing roads are already maxed out. I agree wholeheartedly. Couple that with the boneheads who route traffic, any more expansion would be a horrible idea.

 

Originally Posted By phruby

Didn't you hear? They are breaking ground in the Simba parking lot for something big!

 

Originally Posted By FerretAfros

>>Couple that with the boneheads who route traffic, any more expansion would be a horrible idea.<<

I think it's mostly the strange routing decisions and the lack of signage to let people know what's going on and where they're being directed. If you are taking I-5 south and exit at Disneyland Drive to go to Mickey & Friends (assuming the bridge is open), or if you're taking I-5 north and exit at Katella for Toy Story, it's generally pretty good.

But when they start messing with the traffic flow and/or closing key areas (the bridge and/or parking structure on a Friday night) they create chaos. In mid-November I was trying to get to the Disneyland Hotel for a race expo on a Friday night, and it took us nearly an hour from the time that we initially saw the Disneyland Dr exit. Traffic was backed up on the freeway well before the exit itself, so we took Katella since we assumed (correctly) that they would be directing us to Simba and we didn't want to get mixed in with the parking structure mess.

I have no idea what they were doing on the northern portion of Disneyland Drive, but there's really no excuse to have traffic backing up more than a mile from the parking structure. It wasn't like the expo was causing tons of extra traffic; it was practically deserted. From what I saw, this appeared to be something that happens on a weekly basis

 

Originally Posted By leemac

<<There's another thread about expansion here somewhere and the comment was made that essentially the existing roads are already maxed out. I agree wholeheartedly. Couple that with the boneheads who route traffic, any more expansion would be a horrible idea.>>

It was all very narrow-sighted when that whole interchange was built. It was designed to deal with 10k vehicles but not the peak flows that are seen with theme parks. It was a knuckle-headed decision by the expansion's GM (the infamous Timur Galen) to nickel and dime the infrastructure. I honestly don't know how they will now expand from that exit ramp. I'm not sure it is possible.

It always seems unease to me when a private landowner also manages the surface public roads. There was an agreement for the city to take over when the expansion was being ironed out but TDA won't let it go. Never understand why that Reedy Creek-type mentality exists in Anaheim.

 

Originally Posted By leemac

<<We didn't want to park at DTD to avoid paying to go to DL as so many others do. >>

DTD control their own pricing structure for parking. 3 hours free with 2 hours additional with validation and then only $6 per hour is too generous. You could get either 6 or 8 hours there for the same price as a day at Mickey & Friends at the moment.

The crazy thing is that DTD isn't a typical mall - the number of folks who actually stop off there just to shop is minimal. It is usually folks (like AP-ers) who are making a quick stop at the parks and don't want to deal with the tram (and who could blame them).

 

Originally Posted By FerretAfros

>>It was all very narrow-sighted when that whole interchange was built. It was designed to deal with 10k vehicles but not the peak flows that are seen with theme parks<<

If they were to be building this from the ground-up today, what sort of solutions would you suggest? Although it clearly has its issues, I think the bridge is the most realistic solution for that scenario. Due to the limited right-of-way available, they couldn't do a wider structure, and it's just too far away from the freeway to do direct on/off ramps. They have problems, but I don't know what would solve it

For the non-bridge users, I think that shortening the cycle length of that stoplight would do a world of good. During several recent visits, I've been stuck there for ages trying to do the eastbound through movement, and it's taken an eternity to get a green. Perhaps forbidding a left turn from westbound Ball Rd would alleviate this (instead directing those cars to Toy Story), but I'm not sure it would work for DTD/hotel guests

>>Never understand why that Reedy Creek-type mentality exists in Anaheim.<<

Although I agree it's odd that Disney gets that much control over the roads, I can understand why they want the autonomy. However, they still rely on the City to actually enforce any of it, so it becomes somewhat of a bad mishmash

It's things like this that really highlight the difference between WDW and DLR to me. Although DLR typically does a better job within the parks than WDW, WDW beats the pants off of DLR when it comes to any sort of logistics and large-scale people-moving. Each time DLR tries to prove that it's ready to play in the big leagues, it just does dumb stuff and embarrasses itself. They've proven in the past that they can effectively implement solutions for large crowds, but they simply ignore what they already know

 

Originally Posted By leemac

<<If they were to be building this from the ground-up today, what sort of solutions would you suggest?>>

I'm not a civic master planner but the original plan was for a double-decker structure with one route in and one out with 8 lanes.

I wouldn't have allowed surface access from Ball Road to Disneyland Drive and kept it elevated. If local traffic needed non-Mickey & Friends destinations I'd have directed it to the south via Harbor and Katella.

Disneyland Drive is a mess - anything would be better than what is now there.

 

Originally Posted By RoadTrip

I don't know how the locals put up with it. I drove to DL Resort one time and decided never again. And yes, the primary problem was Disneyland Drive from the I-5 to Magic Way on the way to the Disneyland Hotel. On subsequent visits I flew to LAX and took a shuttle. Since I never go off Disney property anyway, I really don't need a car.

 

Originally Posted By FerretAfros

>>I'm not a civic master planner but the original plan was for a double-decker structure with one route in and one out with 8 lanes.<<

Very interesting. Is that 8 lanes in each direction/on each level, or 8 lanes total?

Given the bottleneck to the north of that intersection before the I-5 interchange, I suspect that it would only push the problem farther down the pipeline, but perhaps it would be easier to fix with that infrastructure in place. I definitely think that reducing left turns at that intersection would do a lot of good

>>Since I never go off Disney property anyway, I really don't need a car.<<

Then it's wise not to have one, especially with the prices that some of the hotels charge you to park there (particularly Disney's hotels). Given how many dining restaurants are within walking distance of DLR, there's no need to have a car unless you're spending a day or more in a different area

 

Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan

>>3 hours free with 2 hours additional with validation and then only $6 per hour is too generous. You could get either 6 or 8 hours there for the same price as a day at Mickey & Friends at the moment.<<

That seems to be a root cause of the problem right there. Seems crazy that it's so much cheaper to park there than Mickey & Friends. Should be pretty much the same price for both, perhaps validation during slower times of the year/weekdays.

 

Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan

In any case, I don't blame SPP for bailing out of that mess. How frustrating to go through all that for no reason.

 

Originally Posted By leemac

<<Very interesting. Is that 8 lanes in each direction/on each level, or 8 lanes total?>>

8 in each direction. It was a contraflow too. I always thought it made more sense to load vehicles into M&F on multiple levels.

Sadly parking is a revenue driver now rather than just covering the cost base.

 

Originally Posted By leemac

<<Given the bottleneck to the north of that intersection before the I-5 interchange, I suspect that it would only push the problem farther down the pipeline, but perhaps it would be easier to fix with that infrastructure in place. >>

The point was to push it back to I-5 which could handle the traffic better. It was double-decker all the way through to I-5. I'm not sure if there was additional compulsory purchase on the properties north of Ball Road.

 

Originally Posted By RoadTrip

Disney may know Theme Parks but I don;t think they know shopping malls very well. For years the worst congestion and parking problem at WDW was at DTD. Hopefully, the work on 'Disney Springs' and addition of the parking structure will help address the issue. I hope they don't just provide more parking without doing something about the congested access roads.

 

Originally Posted By FerretAfros

^^Among other things, the changes include a direct ramp from I-4 into one of the garages. I'm not sure if it will solve all of the area's traffic woes (I don't think there's a direct ramp back to I-4 from DTD), but it should help

 

Originally Posted By TP2000

Sounds like a mess for parking, and yet I just have to ask...

Why the heck would anyone try to go to DTD or Disneyland Resort area in general on the last Sunday of Christmas Vacation? And the first Sunday that all the AP's become unblocked after a few weeks of blockouts?

Choosing to go to Disneyland Resort to just bum around DTD and watch football sounds like something only a masochist would enjoy attempting.