Who told you the station location doesn't make much difference to ridership?

That's not what I told the planning students at USC this week? I oversaw the early station planning on the Gold Line in Pasadena, and we put both auto access park and ride and walking access stations in. Memorial Park and Lake Avenue are perfect examples of very high volume walk on downtown stations. The downtown location in Novato is actually a fairly good option (housing and retail density) for a non-park and ride-walk on station. Also, you may be underestimating long term reverse commute demands to these centers (almost all "models" do), with suburban job access that is walkable from stations. This reverse commute market, in the last few years, has been one of Metrolink's faster growing new markets during the gas price run up. I see Troll Hunter was at some of the same recent events?