Your photo shows only part of the issue of creating a walkway between the Grand Floridian and the Magic Kingdom. If you expand your photo to include the area around the Grand Floridian, you'll notice that Disney would need to make significant changes to the pedestrian and roadway traffic patterns at the north end of the GF property to accommodate guests walking to and from the MK.
Once again, I don't proclaim to be a civil engineer with all of the "right answers" to this question. But I can tell you with 100% certainty that IF (and this is a BIG IF - and really the crux of the debate here)... IF Disney wanted to connect the "Walkway to Nowhere" to the GF, it could be done so very inexpensively and accomplished within a few short months. Yes - there are a number of different ways that Disney
could approach this project. IMHO, the best approach would be what I outlined above - a very basic pedestrian walkway spanning the EWP Canal. Yes, this would require moving the EWP floats, but is that the end of the world? I can't imagine that there is any significant EWP infastructure / equipment that couldn't be moved to the main marine facility loacted on the north side of Bay Lake. This is my opinion and I could be wrong about that, but at the end of the day, the EWP floats are glorified barges with lights, speakers and an outboard marine engine. I don't see moving their storage location as a show-stopper. If that happens to not be the case and the EWP could not be relocated, then it would require a more elaborate bridge with either a draw-bridge to allow the floats to pass underneath, or it would require a serious change in grade/elevation to the walkway leading up to the bridge, both of which would require a significantly higher amount of capital, engineering resources, time, etc. If EWP cannot be relocated, IMHO, this would probably be pretty difficult to justify the capital expense required of the project, and I doubt that it would get any steam.
Assuming that it did, there would be a few options on the other side of the canal. You mention having to make "major changes" to the pedestrian and roadway traffic. My first question is - what pedestrian traffic is currently there? There is virtually no pedestrian traffic on the north side of GF, as that road nearest where the walkway would end is essentially a maintenance road for GF. Regarding the roadway traffic, once again, Floridian Way has very little vehicle traffic north of the GF entrance, as it is primarily for MK personnel and service vehicles only. Even with that being the case, the walkway would never even have to cross Floridian Way. Rather, it could simply wrap around the very edge of the drainage canal and dump pedestrians off into one of two areas: continue up the northern most service entrance of GF via a new sidewalk, or simply terminate in the parking lot of the GF Business Center. This really presents very few engineering hurdles, and would require nothing more than some concrete sidewalks and/or pavers leading up to the canal bridge.
A small bridge similar to the one you posted might work for the drainage area near the Grand Floridian.
I, too, agree that a second, very small bridge spanning the drainage canal would be a better solution. From a cost perspective, it would probably be a wash - even though there's a second (smaller) bridge, you would save on additional concrete / paver expense associated with having to take the walkway all the way out to Floridian Way. In this approach, I would think that the logical solution would be to create a sidewalk connecting from the drainage canal bridge over to the covered walkway leading to the GF bus depot (illustrated as best I could below):
Once again, these are my opinions only. But both options are very feasible, not overly complicated, nor very capital-intense. We're talking about a multi-billion dollar company that has created a giant golf-ball capable of transporting people through time... this would be a walk in the park by comparison
Going back to something that we've already talked about - the need for financial justification. While I agree that most capital-related projects - especially for a publicly-traded, profit-driven comapny like Disney - need to generate ROI (return on investment) to get fiscal support, that isn't necessarily the case for ALL projects. We could all name dozens of things found within each of the parks that cost significant capital to either construct or maintain that do
not generate profit, nor do they play a significant part in people's decisions whether or not to return to Disney. Take for instance the EPCOT Fountain of Nations, or the boat service running from one side of WS to the other. Neither of these things generate revenue, nor do they play a significant (or arguably any) part of a guest's decision as to whether or not to return to Disney, spend money in a gift shop, etc. They
do, however, add to the enjoyment of the overall experience, and those little things are what separates Disney from its competition and are what keep people like me coming back year-in and year-out.
While the financial benefit of completing the GF walkway may be questionable, I think it's one of those projects that simply makes life easier for guests of GF/VGF/Poly. And I truly believe that it
would generate significant revenue in terms of people making a decision to stop at GF for dinner or to run over to MK before close to shop on Mainstreet, or simply to add the "hopper option" onto their tickets. We've already seen a number of people in this thread that have stated that the BLT walkway does just that on the east side of the Seven Seas Lagoon (heck, some have even said it's the reason why they purchased BLT DVC). I see no reason why it would not do the same thing on the west side of the lagoon.
Bill 
