Transit Tomorrowland Style : Disneyland: Expansion plans are said to include a network of moving sidewalks, electric vehicles and high-tech garages. Critics complain it will only serve company property.

Walt Disney Co.’s plans for an expanded Disneyland include an ultramodern network of moving sidewalks and electric-powered vehicles to shuttle people among the theme parks and the company’s new hotels, The Times has learned.

Disneyland has not publicly disclosed its transit plans, but state and local officials familiar with the details say it also calls for an extension of the monorail, a high-tech parking structure, pedestrian bridges and new ramps from the Santa Ana Freeway.

Some officials said they are extremely pleased with the plans, but others complained the system only serves Disney’s property and does not integrate well with the city’s and county’s broader transportation plans.

For example, some Anaheim officials have complained about Disney’s plan to extend its existing monorail line from the theme park to a number of new hotels it will build. This leaves out monorail stops at hotels such as the Anaheim Marriott and the Anaheim Hilton and Towers, and possibly Anaheim’s own people-mover stations, where monorail passengers could cross a platform to ride other transit systems.

Much of Disney’s traffic planning is still conceptual, the sources cautioned, with details changing day to day. For example, a county official reported seeing drawings that contained moving sidewalks, similar to those used at airports, whereas an Anaheim official did not.

Disney is expected to make the expansion plans public next month. Sources say the proposal will include plans for a second theme park built on Disneyland’s existing parking lot and several new hotels. The sources said a third theme park could be built later if enough nearby land can be acquired.

To accommodate the millions of new visitors, the company plans to build high-rise garages capable of parking one car every five or six seconds. The garages will employ a ramp system that delivers motorists directly to the parking level that has open parking spaces instead of queuing vehicles on a circuitous route inside the structure that leads to traffic lanes on surface streets.

One county transportation official said a Disney planner told him: “ ‘We can’t have lines of cars backed up on the street waiting to get in.’ ”

Once parked, visitors would walk to one end of the garage and hop aboard either a moving sidewalk or electric-powered vehicles on pedestrian bridges spanning Harbor Boulevard on one side of Disneyland and a submerged West Street on the other side, according to sources familiar with the project.

Also, according to the California Department of Transportation, Disney is proposing new freeway ramps between planned car-pool lanes on the Santa Ana Freeway and West Street, where Disney will build several hotels and parking garages.

The new freeway ramps, called direct-connect ramps, would allow motorists using the car-pool lanes next to the median to exit directly via a special concrete crossover bridge and ramp onto West Street. This would eliminate the necessity of crossing four lanes of traffic to exit the freeway.

Walking will be encouraged too, with wide, inviting pedestrian mall entrances to the new park from both West Street and Harbor Boulevard.

Most officials familiar with the project declined to be identified by name because of promises of confidentiality made to Disney officials. Others, such as Orange County Supervisor Don R. Roth, declined to offer details as a result of promises of confidentiality made to Disney officials but spoke on the record about general impressions.

“Traffic is the big issue,” said Roth, a former Anaheim mayor. “But rather than worsen the problem, I think (Disney) may do just the opposite. I’m very impressed with what I’ve seen so far. . . . We need people who don’t have to use Harbor, Katella and West Street.”

Others may try to get Disney to change its plans to reflect broader public needs.

For example, Anaheim plans to build its own people-mover system linking the Anaheim Convention Center with the Anaheim Stadium area, a new sports arena and other facilities, including a regional transportation center.

The transportation center is designed to be a place where passengers can transfer between the futuristic Anaheim-Las Vegas magnetically levitated train, a six-city monorail system, Amtrak service and Orange County commuter trains.

But some Anaheim officials have complained about Disney’s plan to extend its own monorail service only to other company-owned properties.

In some conversations with public officials, Disney generally has not been enthusiastic about bringing many patrons in by rail.

“We asked them if they would be interested in a direct-rail connection instead of direct-connect (car-pool) ramps, which are quite costly to build,” said one county transit official. “And they said that they don’t believe a great number of people will be coming to Disneyland by rail.

“They’re trying to create an environment that is narrow and small, that keeps people focused on Disneyland for two or three days instead of the one day that they spend now. And they don’t want people going off to another company’s hotels or take a trip to South Coast Plaza, because that takes away from the restaurants and shops at Disneyland.”

Caltrans officials, meanwhile, say they are frustrated because they spent hundreds of hours briefing Disney and its traffic engineering consultants on the massive $1.6-billion Santa Ana Freeway widening project but received almost no information from Disney in return.

“They’re very secretive with us,” said Barry Rabbitt, Caltrans’ project director. “We don’t want to cause a barrier to anything, but we have seen nothing to give us a magnitude of their expansion so that we can ascertain the impact it will have on the freeway system. . . . Our projected traffic did not include their (expansion) project.”

Rabbitt said he does not believe the difference in freeway traffic volumes will be a major problem, but he still would like to know the specifics.

After several meetings, state and county transportation officials said financing for the direct-connect freeway ramps--expected to cost from $9 million to $30 million depending on how many are built--is unresolved. The Orange County Transportation Commission and Caltrans have said they do not have the money, so Anaheim will have to work out a deal with Disney directly, officials said.

Meanwhile, Caltrans’ environmental documents show that some freeway ramps will still be severely congested after the Santa Ana Freeway is widened and modernized without any anticipated increase in annual visitors to Disneyland related to the expansion.

Disneyland’s Access Plan Disneyland is expected to unveil plans for an expansion soon, expected to attract millions more visitors annually. These are some of the basic elements of the transportation system proposed by Disneyland, according to sources.

1. Freeway ramps from car-pool lanes on the Santa Ana Freeway to a lowered West Street.Traffic experts say Disney patrons arrive mostly in vehicles carrying three or more people.Disney proposed one exit ramp; Caltrans wants an on-ramp too.

2. Parking garage and hotels along West Street. After exiting Santa Ana Freeway, motorists could immediately turn into parking garage or continue south to Katella Avenue.

3. Extension of existing monorail line stops at new Disney hotel properties.

4. Pedestrain bridge. Bridges would employ moving sidewalks, or possibly electric-powered vehicles, according to sources.

5. Parking garage.

6. Anaheim’s proposed people-mover system. Could be similiar to monorail, but technologynot yet selected. System would link Anaheim Stadium, planned sports area, Convention Center, and a regional transit center providing access to proposed Anaheim-Las Vegas maglev train, light-rail line, Amtrak or Orange County trains.