SMART has now provided some limited guidance on ridership
at their September and October Board meetings.

Based on their numbers, the following conclusions
can be made

1) Weekend ridership is diminishing as excursion riders
have fallen off. Where it plateaus is anyone's guess. It may
end up higher than what they forecast (300 riders/weekend day).

2) Weekday ridership is averaging about 2,300 riders/day which is
700 riders fewer than forecast. The trend is basically flat at least
through the end of October.

3) SMART is operating 34 trains per day. The vast majority of the ridership
appears to be on about 12 of them (six in the morning and six in the evening).
Based on Farhad's figures the trains with a lot of ridership seem to be getting
about 150 riders, some a bit more, some a bit less.

This leaves 500 riders for 22 trains or about 23 riders (on average) per train.

Some rail advocates may think that this means SMART is exceeding its goals. In fact,
it is not below its primary goal (weekday ridershp) and it is paying to operate
many trains a day that aren't taking many riders. This won't last because ultimately
budget constraints will rear their ugly head, forcing the hand of the Board
to reduce rail service on trains with few riders.

How this will be impacted as Santa Rosa begins to recover from the fire is
anyone's guess.

FA