When residents first hopped onto the city's new streetcar in November, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said he'd withhold judgment on The Hop's success until this time this year.

"I think the real test is going to come in the springtime," when more people are out and about, Barrett told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at the time. "I'm not going to pass any judgments until we get to Memorial Day next year."

Now just past Memorial Day — and with elected leaders in the midst of a debate over further extending the streetcar — the Journal Sentinel asked Barrett for his take on its track record so far.

He's pleased.

He described ridership in November and December as "great," noting the tallies were well above the projected average daily ridership of 1,850.

Officials knew that numbers would slow down in the coldest months, and the Polar Vortex didn't help, Barrett noted.

Here's where the figures stand so far:

November's average daily ridership was 2,297, not including the opening weekend during which 16,409 rides were tallied. The month's total including opening weekend was 76,125.

December's average daily ridership was 2,453, and total ridership was 76,044.

In January, the average daily ridership was 1,597, and the total was 49,501.

Total ridership for February and the first half of March were lost due to problems with the system that counts passengers. But between March 18 and 31, there was an average of 2,080 rides per day with a total of 29,117.

In April, average daily ridership was 1,852, total ridership was 55,558.

Between May 1 and May 21, average daily ridership stood at 1,927 with the total for that period at 40,467.

Barrett noted that April's numbers were much closer to what was projected, and he anticipated that ridership would continue to grow with the arrival of summer weather.

"Beginning in April, we're seeing the numbers increase and they're very, very solid numbers, and they're exactly where we want to be," he said.

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At the same time, Barrett's proposal to extend the streetcar is running behind schedule.

He has proposed directing $46.8 million in tax incremental financing to the construction of an extension to Wisconsin Avenue ahead of next summer's Democratic National Convention and to preliminary engineering of extensions linking Bronzeville to the north of downtown and Walker's Point to the south.

Under the original timeline, the full Common Council was expected to take up the matter at Wednesday's meeting. It hit a delay last week when the Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee decided to delay a vote to allow time to get answers to a series of questions and concerns.

Ald. Khalif Rainey, who chairs the committee, said at the time that he hoped to schedule a special committee meeting for Tuesday, the day before the Common Council was to meet.

That meeting wasn't scheduled, and the committee must vote on the measure before it can go to the full council.

It is expected to come up when the committee meets again June 11.

"We're still working on it, we're still hoping that we will be able to move this forward," Barrett said. "There are a lot of questions, and the history of this has been there's always a lot of questions."

Contact Alison Dirr at 414-224-2383 or adirr@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter @AlisonDirr.