Now comes the hard part... convincing FTA to fund the project despite their interim rules that will most likely rate the project as not being cost-effective and coming up with a new source of revenue to fund annual operations and maintenance. It is worth celebrating this week, but the next 18 months will make the past three years look like a walk in the park.

So I'm kind of guessing that the 10 mil number is generated by some statistical methods or something.

Could you, would you mind explaining how exactly that number is derived I'm rather curious.

I would guess it could be more/less by about 5%, maybe even as high as 10-20%. (I'm also thinking the 10 mil number might be a bit conservative, which isn't a bad thing.)

As you suspect, it's statistical. We do quarterly ridership surveys to establish weekday, Saturday and Sunday ridership levels.

The calculation actually pegged the date as sometime next week. But since we could easily be +/- a month, why not tie it to our birthday!

The 10,000,000 rider will be 'honorary'.

P.S. Brian is absolutely right. The hard work is just starting. But for this week I'm ignoring that and PARTYING!

How many of those riders avail themselves of the $75 Annual Pass? Or travel in Fareless Square or get on knowing they won't get checked for fare. I can see why this vehicle would have a lot of 'patrons.'

Regardless of fare or no fare (cuz technically, barely anyone pays), it's still an impressive number. 10 mil. :)

Speaking of that, what are the intentions of the east side? Somewhere, someway, somehow the Streetcar has GOT to start comping for operations somehow. I'm a bit nuts, but I'd pay full fare if I got my transit tax money back. :) Otherwise I'd still be happy to pay a buck or two just to have increased frequency and a ticket collector. :)

btw - When I say full fare I mean a solid $1.00 a mile to cover operations, infrastructure, and capitol... which a buck per mile (plus or minus a few cents) SHOULD cover all of those things.