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Timon Parking Lot closes to make way for Cars Land
July 6th, 2009, 7:54 pm · 24 Comments · posted by Adam Townsend, Staff Writer
A lot that held the cars of Disney Resort visitors will soon hold cartoon-character autos from Pixar’s “Cars” movie.
Monday was the first day the lot was closed to make way for the new attraction, one of the largest components of Disney’s California Adventure’s $1-billion expansion.
Cars Land will be a new, self-contained segment of the California Adventure park featuring its own themed attractions, merchandising and live entertainment.
California Adventure occupies the land that was the original parking lot of Disneyland in the 1950s when it first opened. David Gill, a Disney spokesman, said the Timon lot wasn’t opened until much later.
Disney officials refused to divulge the number of spaces in the Timon lot, but Disney Spokeswoman Suzi Brown said that parts of the lot have been closing in stages since November.
Around Disney paid a visit to the city of Anaheim’s Planning and Zoning Department today (Tuesday): every business in the city has to meet requirements for the number of parking spaces available to patrons — whether it’s a bar or apartment building or theme park. We figured we’d find out through public documents how much parking is available in the Timon lot and all the other lots for Disneyland and California Adventure.
The clerk at the planning department had us fill out a written public information request asking for the documents, which law allows the city 10 days to process before it hands them over.
Brown said on typical days, the Mickey and Friends parking garage and the adjacent Pinocchio lot accommodate most park-goers. On busier days, Disney uses “a family of auxiliary lots,” which includes a reciprocal parking agreement with the Anaheim Convention Center, which allows Disney to use the center’s parking on busy days and vice-versa.
Other Disney-owned auxiliary lots are the Pumba lot at Disney Way and Clementine Street, the Simba lot at Disneyland Drive and Katella Avenue and Buzz Lightyear at Ball Road and Convention Way.
Disney also entered into an agreement in March with the new shopping center adjacent to the park, the GardenWalk. The contract allows Disney parking to spillover into the GardenWalk’s parking garage.
Cars Land will be a 12-acre expansion of the park, recreating the town of Radiator Springs from the movie. Pixar head John Lasseter was personally involved in developing the project.
Three new rides will be added to the land, including Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree and Luigi’s Flying Tires and Radiator Springs Racers.
Cars Land will be exclusive to Disney’s West Coast resort.
Cars Land will be the final installment of the California Adventure expansion, and it’s set to open in 2012.
Click the map below to see an interactive graphic of the California Adventure expansion plans, including the site of Cars Land.
– Sally French contributed to this story
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Would it cost $100 to get into CarsLand, too?
Cars land will be part of California Adventure, accessible with admission to that park.
Let me share something I wrote at MiceChat.com recently in regards to the Timon Parking Lot closing….
http://micechat.com/forums/disneyland-resort/119110-goodbye-timon-parking-lot.html
>>OK, a quick recap for those who don’t read In the Parks updates at MiceAge. I have been covering the parking issues for the last few months on a regular basis.
http://micechat.com/forums/blogs/in-the-parks/
Moves Disney has recently taken.
Over at the Simba parking lot, Disney has “rebuilt” the Tram loading area behind the Paradise Pier Parking Structure. They also repaved and repainted the lot, so most of the parking spaces are now in the traditional “Double” parking space line-up that you find at the other Disneyland Them Park parking lots. While it will be many months prior to having the trams from Simba operating, due to the CarsLand construction.
They added a new addition to the Katella Cast Member Parking Lot, that is basically designed to replace the part of the Simba Lot that has been used by CM’s (and DtD employees) the last few years. This will allow most of the Simba lot to be available to Theme Park Guests.
Disney entered into an agreement with the new Anaheim GardenWalk complex to allow Disney to use a section of their parking spaces for Theme Park parking in the morning. Extra spaces are available, as the structure was designed to handle not just the Shoppertainment Complex, but some Time Shares and hotels, which have not been built yet. Disney has installed infrastructure that allows them to set up computerized registers at the Parking Entrance off of Disney Way, and they collect the normal fees (and honor the AP Parking passes.
The Pumbaa Lot across the street has been used more often to replace the spaces lost in the Timon Lot, as many spaces were removed to allow for an area to store all the World of Color equipment and allow for the Construction Workers to park. (Many of them bring their own tools, and need to be close to the project).
Disney ended an agreement with a Strawberry Farmer to operate the Strawberry Field that was rumored to become the Third Park, next to the Buzz Lightyear Parking Lot south of Katella on Harbor. Disney plowed and graded the field, but has not gotten the proper permits to allow construction of a “flat” parking lot on the land, to allow for additional parking next to the Buzz Lightyear lot.
So what are the plan for the rest of the year…
First off, lets start with slow days, which won’t be until late August.
Disney will only operate the Parking Structure, and guests who enter the Harbor Blvd. Entrance will be sent to the parking structure vis the back road south of DCA to Disneyland Drive, and then up Disneyland Drive to the Parking Structure.
If it gets a bit busier, they will use Simba and/or Pumbaa in addition to the parking structure. Alas, this does cost Disney quite a bit of money. First off, they have to pay the Anaheim Police Department to direct traffic on city streets, which includes the direction to Pumbaa on Disney Way, and the road crossing to Simba over Disneyland Drive. The contract with the Police Union basically requires the use of off duty officers that will get paid overtime. And Disney has to pick up the costs of the officers, plus the supervision and related costs, such as police vehicle use. Also, Disney will have to pay someone to operate additional buses. For the Simba lot, that is paying Empire Transportation to operate additional buses from the Katella CM lot due to the lack of spaces for CM’s at Simba. If they park Pumbaa, then they have to pay Coach USA to operate the large white buses. (Trams are not street legal, although there is a special exemption that allows them to cross Disneyland Drive).
If it expected to be a bit more busy, then they will use Anaheim GardenWalk, which requires the setup and transportation of a bunch of CM’s to the lot, (They have to do a lot of directing of traffic and make sure that Disneyland guests park in the proper spaces (which are farther away than most from the AGW mall entrances, which are left open for the shoppers) plus pay Coach USA to operate the buses for guests to go to the park.
The next two options are partially based on what is going on at the Convention Center, as Disney does have a deal to share the Buzz Lightyear and Pongo lots next to the former Strawberry Field and also the Convention center Parking Structure that you access off of Katella Avenue. So it truly depends if there is a major event or even a couple at the Convention Center. Plus Disney pays Coach USA for Buses if they park at Buzz/Pongo. Plus to make things worse, the City of Anaheim is planning to remove the original parking Structure at the Convention Center to build a new hotel and add more Convention meeting space. This will have the city to want to use the Buzz Lightyear/Pongo lots more often. (and why Disney is trying to pave over the former Strawberry Field).
Of course, as we have seen a few times this year already, Disney just gives up and says that all Parking Lots are full and no parking is available.
Plus you have to add into the mix House of Blues and other major Downtown Disney events that can require the use of a lot of parking spaces.
So it looks like Parking at the DLR will be an major issue for the foreseeable future…<<
Thanks David! If readers want to look at some more pictures of construction around the Timon Lot, check out the MiceAge post from before Fourth of July Weekend:
http://micechat.com/forums/blogs/in-the-parks/1151-happy-fourth-july-do-you-remember-murphys-law.html
CarsLand…isn’t that the nickname for the I-5 at Rush Hour?
Gonna need to take out a mortgage just to take the family to Disneyland/California Adventures for the day. Nah, I’ll just go to Knotts!
Disneyland Resort? How can you call that place a resort? That’s like calling Santa Ana, America’s safest city.
I don’t think there has ever been a year without construction at Disney Land in Anaheim. Well, maybe a couple during my period here on earth.
They are running out of room for attractions! Much can be said the same for Knott’s Berry Farm. They are packing that park so tight… something is bound to fail and injure their customers.
I know it’s fashionable to randomly use apostrophes today, but in the sentence “Cars Land will be a new, self-contained segment of the California Adventure park featuring it’s own themed attractions, merchandising and live entertainment.” the writer should have used “its” and not “it’s.” With the apostrophe in place, the meaning of it’s is “it is.” Leaving out the apostrophe changes it to a possessive. Not as an egregious mistake as most of the apostrophe disasters these days, but supposedly the OC Register is a real newspaper that produces readable stories featuring correct spelling and grammar. Wait … never mind. It’s the OC Register.
Thanks for the good eye — we’re well aware of that rule. I fixed that typographical error. Considering the constant deadlines on the Web, we sometimes miss minor mistakes. Luckily, the interactive nature of the Web allows for sharp-eyed readers like you to point out those errors so they can be fixed promptly.
As usual, the whiners are quick to start typing. Who cares if it’s $100 a day to get in? You are missing the point and the bigger picture. At a time when the local economy is imploding, Disney is embarking on a one BILLION dollar expansion. That is quite a bit of money that will be pumped into the California economy. This is great news and great timing.
Even better news would be if Knott’s decided to embark on their own expansion in order to compete…
Nicely said Joe!!!!!!!
Dam, I liked that parking lot. Very close to the entrance.
Oh, and do you really think Californians want to go to a place called cars land on vacation?
They do if they’re fans of the Pixar movie “Cars”, which my children and I are. We are going to love going on these new rides. There are plenty of fans considering the “Cars” toys continue to sell in the stores well after the movie was released.
Actually, yes. The Cars Land’s anchor attraction will feature a duplicate of the “Test Track” attraction at Epcot, except it will be rethemed to match the Cars theme. Test Track is the type of attraction that people go to the park just to ride that one attraction. No doubt, the attraction at DCA will do the same thing.
Duplicate? The Test Track at DW-Epcot was a high-speed ride. That wouldn’t fit into such a small section of land in Anaheim without some serious pruning.
The new Radiator Springs Racers attraction for Cars Land will use the same technology as Test Track at Epcot, but it will not be a ‘duplicate’, per se.
For the record, Test Track at Epcot can easily fit into the new Cars Land section with room to spare.
Instead of expanding California Adventure, why don’t they use the space they already have? That place is nothing but walkways! Been there once and I will never go back. It’s a major rip-off!!
It’s not made for just us So. Cal folks. It is a tourist attraction. People from all over plan there vacations to come here just like we plan going to Hawaii or such…
I can hardly wait for a new land that promotes itself as Cars Land. Yes a land of rusted junk yards, tires and auto parts in a tumbleweed setting, sounds like Barstow on a good day. And let’s not forget the E-ticket attraction of riding in a car at speeds up to 40-mph! Didn’t I just get to this park on a freeway where I was peddling 60-70-mph? How innovative.
California Adventure is a waste of time and money.
Disney should have kept it a parking lot.
Our family loves California Adventure. We just wish that you could get back and forth between the parks faster for either Annual Passholders and/or for Park Hopper ticket holders. If they are moving the front entrace gates forward and removing the Golden Gate Bridge, it would be great if they would build a monorail station in California Adventure. The new expansion sounds like a money making idea. One of the reasons that Disneyland is so magical is because once you step through those gates - the trainstation, train and Main Street transport you to another time. We are looking forward with anticipation to see what California looked like in the 1920’s. The addition of the Trolley cars is brilliant! It’s that same magic as the train and the horse pulled trolley’s on Main Street! And remember, the constant changes and updates have kept us coming back again year after year, several years as Annual Passholders…and we are from Texas! Also bear in mind that in these tough economic times Disneyland continues to compete with Walt Disney World for “guests” and when visitors/tourists come from out-of-state, they pour a good bit of money into the economy and not just at Disney.
Japanese used cars are best and you can see number of japanese cars in California land of pleasures so i have a company for you to visit and check Japanese used cars online selling and purchasing and go for California resorts. i hope some times i also come there and will enjoy the beauty of this land.
here is the link for Japanese used cars online
http://www.mawarinternational.com