In 2003 Disney played a game of chicken with the state of Florida and Universal Studios
that had billions of dollars on the line.
Disney won and then in 2004 they lost along with everyone else.
There was a lot going on when it came to the Florida elections in the year 2000 so understandably
this wasn’t making headline news.
However a referendum had passed that election night that amended the state constitution
with a mandate to build a high-speed rail system for Florida.
Over the following few years the newly created Florida High Speed Rail Authority looked at
a Tampa-Orlando connection as their first phase, with plans to finish it by 2009.
That involved coming up with a route between the two cities, and this is where the trouble began.
The initial route, known as the Bee-Line Route, was planned to start at Orlando International
Airport and make stops at the Orlando Convention Center, potentially Universal Studios and
Seaworld, and then Walt Disney World, before continuing on to Lakeland and Tampa.
Disney, well, they didn’t like that idea, and for good reason.
The route would be ferrying tourists and passengers directly to some of their biggest competitors
before them.
It also made it easier for guests to leave Disney property and go spend their money elsewhere.
So Disney decided to instead propose an alternative route if the state wanted their cooperation.
The Greeneway Route, as it was called, also started at Orlando International Airport.
However it then went south, bypassing all those pesky competitors and going directly
to Walt Disney World, before continuing on to Tampa.
It was entirely self-serving, but then again, that was their job.
Just as Universal and Seaworld backed the Bee-Line Route because it benefited their
bottom line, Disney backed the Greeneway route because it benefited theirs.
Now normally what these companies wanted wouldn’t mean too much.
After all, Universal Studios couldn’t do much to stop the state from buying land near
their park and building a station.
With Disney, however, their cooperation was pretty crucial.
With land in size comparable to the city of San Francisco, getting a station on Disney
property was pretty key to making the stop work.
And whether they liked it or not, the $2.3 billion route depended on a stop at Disney World.
After all, that’s where the vast majority of tourists coming into the Orlando area were
headed, and without that ridership, the railway would be a major financial risk.
So calling Disney’s bluff and skipping them was out of the question.
It also didn’t help that Disney already had a fully functional safety net called Disney’s
Magical Express.
The complimentary bus service was new, but it was already bringing millions of tourists
directly to Disney World from Orlando International every year.
So when Disney said their cooperation depended on the Greeneway Route, they meant it.
The state may have mandated a high-speed rail line, but Disney didn’t need it, so they
felt no pressure to cooperate.
Beyond that, Disney put their money where their mouth was.
They offered a guaranteed ridership to their stop to the tune of $1 billion over 30 years.
This meant that even if people didn’t use the system as much as they hoped, the state
knew that nearly half the cost of the project would be covered.
On top of that, Disney also offered to donate some of their own land for the stop and they
promised that if the Greeneway route was selected, they would dissolve Disney’s Magical Express
and encourage riders to instead use the high-speed rail, amounting to nearly two million riders a year.
Universal and Seaworld?
They offered nothing.
The Florida High Speed Rail Authority put together their own estimations, and with all
the details accounted for, they believed that the Bee-Line route would see up to 2.5 million
travelers a year and the Greeneway Route would see as many as 4 million.
Add to that Disney’s ridership guarantee and, financially speaking, it was a no-brainer.
Even the Orlando Sentinel would publicly come out in support of Disney’s route.
So on October 27th, 2003 the Florida High Speed Rail Authority chose the Central Florida
Greeneway Route.
So what happened?
Where’s our high-speed rail stop and why is Magical Express still around?
Well as all of this drama played out, the Governor at the time was against all of it.
He argued that the state couldn’t handle the financial burden that a state-wide high-speed
rail system would bring.
With the 2004 elections right around the corner, he made an active push to repeal the amendment
mandating the system, and guess who threw in a few bucks to promote the repeal when
election season rolled around?
Universal and Seaworld.
They weren’t getting their train stops, so why should anyone else?
The amendment would successfully be repealed that November, and while that didn’t formally
end the Florida High Speed Rail Authority, it was a major symbolic roadblock.
They pledged to keep working on a high-speed rail system but without the state funding
they’d need and without a deadline looming, it just never happened.
Over the following years there would be other attempts at high-speed rail proposals, and
even just recently we saw news of a possible Disney World stop with Virgin Trains USA looking
to expand from West Palm Beach to Orlando and Tampa.
Will we eventually get a Walt Disney World high-speed rail stop?
Who knows?
But if history shows us anything, it’s that Disney is a heavyweight in the Central Florida
region, and so if we do get one, it’ll probably be on their terms.