That's when trains will run to five new stations, including two with the potential to be huge passenger magnets: the Mall of America and the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

And the line could see scores of new riders headed to the Minneapolis stations that opened in June, thanks to two 600-vehicle park-and-ride lots, 13 bus routes that will connect at the mall and Metro Transit's plans to sell the service to visitors flying into the Twin Cities.

The first phase of the line, which serves 12 stations between Minneapolis' Warehouse District and Fort Snelling, proved more popular than expected. It is averaging about 14,500 weekday riders — 5,000 above projections.

Metro Transit General Manager Brian Lamb said officials hope the line will keep outdoing expectations and surpass the average of 19,300 weekday riders projected along the entire 12-mile route by the middle of next year.

"We are seeing some encouraging trends," Lamb said, including a 20 percent jump over the past two months in the number of morning rush-hour riders — considered to be least likely to be boarding out of simple curiosity.

"That's a really good indication that we're building that solid foundation for ongoing patronage," Lamb said.

Opinions on the line are far from unanimous, however.

Minnesota Senate Republican Leader Dick Day of Owatonna, a leading legislative opponent of the line, criticized the size of the taxpayer subsidy needed to keep trains running. Despite Hiawatha's initial popularity, Day said the $715 million it took to build the line would have been better spent — and helped more commuters in the long run — in other parts of the Twin Cities.

"I've always thought that the corridor is wrong," Day said.

Hiawatha's first phase opened June 26, with service between downtown, neighborhoods along Hiawatha Avenue and Fort Snelling's 950-space park-and-ride lot.

On Saturday, passengers will be able to ride past Fort Snelling to:

• The Lindbergh passenger terminal.

• The Humphrey charter terminal, where the Metropolitan Airports Commission will offer 600 contract parking spots for $49 per month to light-rail commuters.

• The Bloomington Central Station, where a private developer plans a $700 million complex of housing, shops and offices.

• The 28th Avenue Station, which will offer 600 free park-and-ride spots.

• The Mall of America, the nation's largest shopping complex.

The mall exemplifies how Hiawatha's business might change with the new stops — and how Hiawatha could in turn change the businesses served by the stations.

The mall will close its parking decks at 3:30 a.m. each day and not re-open them until 8 a.m. to deter commuters who otherwise might use its ramps as free parking for the line, spokeswoman Julie Hansen said. Mall stores open at 10 a.m. during most of the year, earlier during the holiday shopping season.

"We just don't know what to expect," Hansen said.

At the same time, the mall will try to capitalize on the connection by casting lures to downtown Minneapolis conventioneers and airport travelers with long layovers. With the mall less than 15 minutes away from the airport's main passenger terminal by train, "we're hoping for some good snowstorms," Hansen said.

The Metropolitan Airports Commission, which paid $87 million toward the cost of the two airport stations and a 1.7-mile tunnel beneath its runways, aims to profit from the line's popularity with its Humphrey Terminal contract parking.

Extra trains will run between the two airport stations to serve travelers and workers round the-clock; Hiawatha service otherwise shuts down for about three hours each night.

No fares will be required between the two stations, though people who board at either stop bound for any other station must buy a ticket or carry a pass.

Metro Transit has budgeted $200,000 to attract airport visitors to the light-rail line. It pitched stories about Hiawatha to magazines that travelers find in jetliner seat pockets and hotel rooms and is buying advertising at the airport, said Bob Gibbons, director of customer services.

Empty trains started running to the new stations on Nov. 13 to simulate the line's full schedule and troubleshoot its systems, Lamb said.

The biggest problem to resolve was stoplight timing on 34th Avenue in Bloomington, where the trains run down the middle of the two-way street. Signals must be coordinated to allow trains to flow through green lights at intersections.

Similar stoplight problems have plagued Hiawatha Avenue, though that stretch posed a more complicated traffic pattern problem because the train tracks run parallel to the busy roadway.

It's not the only problem. Residents of Minneapolis neighborhoods along the line have complained about downtown workers parking on residential streets near stations. Metro Transit officials hope a recent expansion of the park-and-ride lot at Fort Snelling and new lots near the Lake Street-Midtown Station will draw some of those drivers away from neighborhoods.

Metro Transit is crunching data collected from passengers this fall and plans to prepare a report, probably in January, on the demographic profile of who has been riding the first phase, Gibbons said.

The agency will repeat the survey next year to see whether that profile changes after the new stations open.

"One of the things we wanted to get at is the manner in which people access the rail line. Did they walk up? Did they bike up? Did they take a bus up? Were they dropped off?" Gibbons said.

That will help answer whether a major reconfiguration of bus routes in the south metro was successful in making good connections between buses and trains in the Hiawatha corridor.

The second phase of those route changes will begin with the extended Hiawatha service on Saturday.

Metro Transit's goals were to both connect bus passengers to the rail line and improve bus service throughout the south metro, with key changes including all-day, limited stop service on Interstate 35W between downtown Minneapolis and the Minnesota River and improved service along the Interstate 494 corridor.

Despite ridership and revenue coming in higher than expected, the Met Council probably will not revise projections of Hiawatha's financial performance soon, Metropolitan Council Chairman Peter Bell said.

"We will be cautious about that," Bell said. "We really want to make sure that this is sustainable over an extended period of time."

Metro Transit is budgeting $18 million for 2005 operations, Lamb said.

About $6.5 million comes from passenger fares and $8 million will be covered by state or Hennepin County funds equally. The remainder will be covered by a federal grant and a 2004 budget surplus.

A year from now, Bell said, the novelty of the new trains will have faded and officials will be able to tell how popular the line is with riders. But he cautioned: "We should not kid ourselves here. No matter what we do with our ridership, this is going to take a huge subsidy from the taxpayer."