Disney seeks to purchase Anaheim city streets for Disneyland expansion project

ANAHEIM, Calif. (KABC) -- Disneyland in Anaheim is expanding and now the happiest place on Earth is looking to buy some nearby city streets for the new project.

Disney wants to expand their land in Southern California and that includes buying streets like Magic Way, which meets at Walnut Street leading straight to the theme park.

A traffic study found that "99% of the users on Magic Way are departing to, or departing from, or arriving to a Disney property," said Joe Haupt, a consultant for Disney.

With the proposed DisneylandForward Project, the company wants to spend $1.9 billion to develop the property. That includes $40 million to buy streets from the city of Anaheim including Hotel Way, part of Clementine Street and Magic Way.

"Let's close off access for Magic Way to Walnut, so we really eliminate the possibility of people cutting through since so much of the street is used anyway by Disney users," Haupt said. "Let's...preclude the possibility of, you know, Waze or Google Maps taking somebody through there."

Disney fans say they are excited about the possible expansion.

"I'm pretty sure it'd be a good idea. It's a lot of people in Disneyland, if they expand it. It would be less wait times for the rides, because the rides are about an hour, hour and a half. You know, so you're not getting as many rides as if they, like, they would, say, expand, so yeah, I think it'd be a good thing," said Thomas Johnson, who was visiting from Arizona.

"In a way, it's a good thing because they're gonna have probably more expansion, so more people to the park,' said Marco Garcia.

But others say they think more expansion means more costs.

"It kind of boosts up, like, work, you know, because there's more work opportunity. But you know, it's just everything around it goes up, like businesses, like stores, you can see gas is going up. And then you're just like everything around the area is just a little more expensive than driving out a little to go to a same place," said Anaheim resident Taul Hernandez.

The Anaheim City Council is expected to vote on the DisneylandForward Project in April.

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