Ok, what about all the crazy lightning/storms that happen practically daily at WDW? How often will this gondola system be "temporarily unavailable due to weather."
And are these gondolas air conditioned?
How fast do they go? If they are really fast, that's cool, but if they operate at "Blizzard Beach Chair Lift" speed, no thanks.
A detachable gondola lift (the most likely scenario here) would go between 15-20 MPH. Likely the ride from CBR to Epcot and DHS would be around 5 minutes.) The Blizzard Beach chair is a non-detachable lift, and I think it unlikely they would build it like that. (Open.)
The gondolas would in all likelyhood be fully enclosed to prevent people throwing things out of them, and they would be air conditioned. A small solar powered unit on each gondola would likely work fine.
The lightning I do agree is an issue. While others have pointed out that they could sustain a strike "Safely", Disney would not want guests to be inside a gondola struck by lightning. They would need to have the ability to run bus routes as an alternative during heavy weather.
The question is, what does Disney do with people who have a fear of heights? (Answering my own question: Those people could choose not to stay at those resorts...) I wouldn't say I have a fear of heights, but I have a real fear of the cables breaking. It is irrational, I know. That video of the gondolas (or whatever is the appropriate term) in Dubai...I'm not sure I could ride those.
I'm going against the crowd here. I am not liking this news. Yep, I have an irrational fear of heights, so there is no way I would ever get on one. I can do the monorail because it is not really that high. I'm sure these would be much higher..
I hypothesized in the CBR DVC thread that it would be around 20 feet in the air. Your example of the Monorail is a good one - it would likely run at a similar height to the Monorail, which is around 20-30 feet off the ground. (However, a gondola would likely be "scarier" to you because of the lack of underneath support.) Cables breaking are nearly impossible on a maintained system. The Cable is made up of several separately wound cables. Not that this will make you feel better - but most Gondola accidents involve someone messing around and falling out of the cabin. Similar to most rides at Disney - the likelyhood is that any accident will be caused by the passenger. The National Ski Areas Association reports 0.138 fatalities per 100 million miles transported compared to 1.23 for cars, so almost 10 times safer than riding in a car.
That said, I am sure you would not be required to take it, though why you would choose to stay at CBR if the main method of transportation was something you were afraid of wouldn't really make much sense.
I'd be shocked if you had to go through security before boarding these. You don't have to currently with any other mode of Disney transport, so why would these be different? Additionally, they would then have to set up additional screening locations, whereas I think having less of those would be better and easier to manage for Disney.
I agree - based on the "landings" it looks like they will land outside the IG and outside the DHS entrance.
I think it is much more likely that they would just increase the # of gates at the IG. At best this would be a 20-30% increase in traffic through the IG.
While Disney might well choose to close these during lightning, it would be unnecessary from a safety standpoint. Why? Because the gondolas will likely have a metal shell. When you are inside a metal shell (like your car), you are inside what is known in Physics as a Faraday cage. The current flows on the outer surface of a Faraday cage, meaning those inside the cage are immune from the lightning strikes. In fact, you're much, much safer in a Faraday cage during a lightning storm than just about anywhere else you can be. This principle is used to protect people in wire mesh suits that work on high voltage lines (often from helicopters), people who work in areas where high voltage arcs are a danger, and yes, you in your car when you are driving through a huge thunder/lightning storm.
This is all true - but Disney would not want it's customers being struck by lightning even safely. I think it would close down during the summer afternoon storms.