The State of Florida’s Takeover of the Disney World Monorail System Is Now Complete

Last January, in the midst of the feud between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and The Walt Disney Company, the governor signed a bill that removed oversight of Walt Disney World‘s monorail system from the company. The new legislation gave the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) the authority to inspect and oversee the privately-owned transportation system.

However, that legislation had some unintended consequences. The first and most glaring was that the Florida Department of Transportation had never conducted monorail inspections before.

The second issue was the scope of the law; in an attempt to appear as though Disney World was not punished, the Florida Legislature wrote a broad law that put dozens of monorail systems under the FDOT, including those at Orlando International, Tampa International, and Miami International Airports.

In January, Walt Disney World gave the FDOT all the manuals and safety records for its monorail system and said that it was fully cooperating with the department now charged with overseeing one of the parks’ main transportation systems.

As part of the new law, FDOT engineers were required to inspect the system every one to two years. However, until recently, no one knew whether those inspections took place.

However, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request from News 6 Orlando, we know that the FDOT has already conducted inspections on the Walt Disney World monorail system. These inspections took place three months after DeSantis signed the law.

Still, it’s taken over a year for FDOT to comply with the FOI request because the information contained “structural information” on the monorail system.

These inspections were conducted in August 2023 and found that some of the support columns had cracks, but they were not significant enough to damage the structural integrity. Three months later, the team returned with divers to inspect underwater support columns and found no damage.

The FDOT must re-inspect the Disney World monorail system in the next 12-18 months. The last inspection deemed the monorail system and bridges safe.

So, despite the overblown feats that the FDOT could have shut down the Walt Disney World monorail system, everything turned out fine.