There are no longer direct bus rides from the TTC - Downtown Disney which stopped a long time ago, because a lot of offsite guests were parking their cars at Downtown Disney and getting on the bus to the TTC to avoid the parking fees when going to the Magic Kingdom. Also when going from the Contemporary the bus will also stop to pick up guests at the Polynesian and Grand Floridian, so it's not as a direct ride when you compare going to Saratoga Springs.
When I said direct bus from Contemp, I was referring to not having to transfer then walk.My fault I was not clear on that aspect.You can also walk from the MK to the Contemp., and catch the bus.You can do the same thing by going to the Grand (boat or rail)which would be the last stop before going to DTD. It used to be part of the TTC bus, and when they did away with the TTC portion,(they had tested it while I was still there and went back to the old TTC. Contemp bus apparently they finally made it official) they split the Wilderness Lodge off the route,and put it with Ft Wilderness, which never had a direct bus. Ft. guests had to go to either the Lodge or to TTC to go to DTD.
There was more than just the outside guests taking the bus from TTC that ended the TTC bus.That part (outside guest as they still pay for Disney transport in the ticket they buy to get into the park(s).How else would a day guest get from TTC to MK, for the day.? (not being sarcastic or anything just making a point) Transport gets/got a small part of the tix price to fund the ferry and monorail station.)never really affected day to day operations as there was 6 busses assigned to that route, scheduled every 10 minutes. A large part of the problem was that bus management looked at a lot of the routes and how to improve them.The DTD Contemp route at its peak is over and hour long.(Longer when the West Side was still a scheduled stop)Whenever there was inclement weather(lightning) the busses would get stuck in Typhoon Lagoon and it would take 45 minutes to get out, due to poor traffic design.
Another part of the porblem was the lack of equipment to go around, and still have busses left over as spares and also for regularly scheduled maintainance.With all of the resorts that were opening, expanding etc,plus an increase in demand overall, there was simply not enough busses to go around, and it was too expensive( from what the rumor mill had it at the time) to expand the monrail system.(Plus another rumor was the Michael Eisner did not like the monorail system to begin with.)
A third factor was the lack of drivers to drive the busses.
A driver can only work at Disney for 12 hours, before they have to go home, and can only work 70 hours in 8 days which limits the amount of time behind the wheel.(Varies slightly from otr drivers which is a llittle more lenient than Disney) Plus, have to have a mandated break,(s) every so often, depending on their length of shift.( up to 4 per shift)
A fourth aspect was to try and standardize things from a resort point of view. Some of the busses that did multiple stops, did it differently from park to park for one reason or another and was causing guest confusion.For a while, the AK park Contemp bus stopped at Ft Wilderness, but the Studio bus didnt. Coming back from a park, a guest would jump on the Comtemp bus thinking it goes here, but goes there instead.
When Coronado opened, I was on the busses opening team for that resort. For several months we tried a resort focused operation that had the busses originating at the resorts as opposed to the parks as it stands now. It worked out better than expected, but for what ever reason, was never implemented.
Of course there will be some guests that are there without any intention of heading to a park. I guess there could be locals that head there to eat and then take Disney transportation to another spot.
