WASHINGTON — District of Columbia transit officials say they’re experiencing a much smaller crowd for the presidential inauguration than four years ago.

Metro says 308,000 train passengers had entered the system as of midday Monday. That’s about 60 percent of the number of passengers by the same time in 2009. But officials also say the crowd is larger than expected.

Metro spokesman Dan Stessel says trains have mostly been operating according to schedule and without significant delays, though they bypassed one station, Federal Center SW, for a brief period Monday morning because of severe crowding on the platform.

He says a select few stations whose names were pre-printed on inaugural tickets as a guide to visitors are bearing the brunt of the crowding and ridership.

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