Stewart rally helps Metro set ridership record

[RamboLiberal]

Source: WTOP.com/AP

WASHINGTON - Metro says preliminary figures show Metrorail moved a record number of passengers on Saturday, with many heading to the National Mall for a rally by comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

Metro says 825,437 Metrorail trips were taken on Saturday, compared to average Saturday ridership of about 350,000. Metro says Saturday's ridership surpassed the 1991 Desert Storm rally, when 786,358 trips were taken.

On an average weekday, Metro says a combined 1.2 million rail and bus trips are taken.




Read more: http://www.wtop.com/?nid=25&sid=2093626

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As a comparison to Beck's rally:

Metrorail traffic on Saturday – the day Fox News commentator Glenn Beck hosted a rally at the Lincoln Memorial – was at its highest level since the Fourth of July weekend.

More than half-a-million people rode Metro trains Saturday, far outpacing weekend ridership since Independence Day, according to Metro traffic reports.

Roughly 510,000 people rode Metro trains last Saturday, or about 180,000 more than had on any other weekend day in August.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/blogs/capital-land/metro-ridership-spiked-on-day-of-glenn-beck-rally-101822258.html#ixzz13z7G6bWj

[intheflow]

1. Really? The record wasn't smashed during Obama's inauguration?

A million people on the Mall vs. the 250,000 that were there yesterday? I was at many rallies during the Bush years with 250,000-800,000 people, and took the Metro in and out of the city each time without much trouble. But during the inauguration, it was insanely packed, 45 minute lines to get to a token machine, another 15 minutes to actually get on a train. It seems strange to me that this one event - so much smaller than the inauguration - could have set Metro records.

[bigworld]

3. I think it's a record for a Saturday

while the inauguration was a Tuesday.

[intheflow]

5. Ah, good deduction.

:thumbsup:

[Kolesar]

7. They should have the inauguration on the Sunday after the Super Bowl

Make it accessible and easy to remember.

[thelordofhell]

2. And they had no Koch brothers' paid bus trips

How many less people would have been at the glenn beck's "shit on Martin Luther King" fest if it wasn't for them being bussed in?

[RamboLiberal]

4. Malfunctioning escalator injures 4 at L'Enfant Plaza station

Metro riders said a crowded escalator at the L'Enfant Plaza station began to speed to dangerous levels before it was halted Saturday afternoon, causing some passengers to fall as they got to the bottom.

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Joe Corey, 42, of Raleigh, N.C., was walking down an out-of-service escalator Saturday at L'Enfant when he noticed the escalator to his left began to speed up.

Corey, who had come to the rally with his wife, Becky, 32, and infant daughter, Josie, said people on the runaway escalator began scrambling onto the ramp that separated the two escalators.

"People were trying to get to me, so I dropped everything I had and tried to get to them," Corey said. "It was like a rip tide. . . . I was trying to grab anyone I could."

Corey said the incident lasted about 45 seconds. "There were people who were coming away bloodied and with ripped pants," he said. "It was not a simple 'whoops, a couple of people fell off the escalator.' It was pretty vicious."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/31/AR2010103103825.html

[Bossy Monkey]

6. What?! No limousines? What kind of limousine liberals are we? n/t

[Historic NY]

8. Using the Metro figures then the Rally had 475437 people

[Warren Stupidity]

9. divided by two

You have to allow that each extra rider made a trip to and from the rally. Still those are huge numbers and many people did not take the metro.

[karynnj]

10. They also seemed to have all the cheap NYC/DC buses packed

My daughter, who went to Northern Virginia, to present a paper on a panel, found that all the buses were sold out. She was able to find a seat on an evening AMTRACK to return to return to NYC where she is a graduate student. Getting a bus is usually no problem.

[bigworld]

11. So many people...

many people couldn't even get on incoming metro trains down here. They were absolutely packed wall to wall. Some friends of mine attempted to (in Maryland) get on northbound cars so that they could get on at the terminus -- but still the trains were too full and they never even made it to the rally.

As jokey as the rally was, there is a huge groundswell of people who really believe the message behind it all. Ain't it great?

[activa8tr]

12. Don't you just LOVE IT when simple facts like these get in the way of...

Glenn Beck fans' over-exaggerations and bluster?

I sure do!

Great find!!! Thanks for this info!

http://shortformblog.com/chatter/dc-metro-jon-stewart-rally/

From this link:

"To put it in perspec tive: The rally had the highest Satur day rider ship ever – passing the record set in June 1991, when a rally was held for Opera tion Desert Storm. That rally gave Metro around 786,358 trips that day. And assum ing the riders went round-trip yester day, that means 237,719 extra riders were on the Metro yester day. That doesn’t mean 237,719 extra people – the tally doesn’t account for multi ple trips by the same rider – but suffice it to say that the crowd was really huge yester day. And no, the Beck rally (which also took place on a Satur day) didn’t even rate in the top five (which is what we know you were really wondering)."

[Klukie]

13. I was on it and it was packed!!

We had to stand shoulder to shoulder on every stop but we really enjoyed the experience!