Playing with numbers

I'm not sure that I agree with your asessment of "normal" years. Obviously 911 was hard on all tourist businesses. The fires closed down the interstate for hours at a time. These are factors that I think should be considered just as the "last year" factor was a consideration. Lots of businesses were doing so much better in 2001 before 911 that are just now recuperating. If not considering these factors and including the couple of years before that, then I think it is scewed (imho). I propose that all seven years should be added and averaged. I think that would be a more fair way of approaching it.
Other factors that should be considered: Despite a couple of glowing reports (and I truly wish I'd heard/seen more of those), it is the continual grumbling of riders that concerns me. Delays, reservations problems, capacity issues, gift shop being closed during operation, parties not being allowed to reserve a car - are what I hear most of. These and the already significant drop in advertising dollars might (again, only my humble opinion) work against next year's ridership.(an aside: I do not blame Railstar employees for these shortfalls)
Steve, can you get us a tally of the daily ridership for Railstar since the opening day? I asked the CHS for it and they could not fulfill my request -stating that they didn't have that information. Thanks in advance for anything you can do to get that information.