After some concern that it would be operating a regular weekend schedule on Saturday, Metro announced Wednesday that it will open early and run additional trains to accommodate the Women’s March on Washington.
Trains will start running Saturday at 5 AM, two hours earlier than a typical Saturday, the transit system said. General Manager Paul Wiedefeld also said Metro also plans to add more than a dozen extra trains to the Red and Orange lines, while trains from the ends of all lines will depart every 12 minutes. There will also be additional trains on the “Rush Plus” service between Franconia-Springfield and Greenbelt. Metro aims to increase the frequency of trains stopping at stations in downtown DC to every four to six minutes. There will also be no scheduled track work on Saturday, Metro said.
Organizers of the Women’s March expect at least 200,000 people in attendance, and local officials have said that they’ve received six times as many requests for charter-bus parking on the day of the demonstration than they have for Friday’s swearing-in of President-elect Donald Trump.
For those who don’t want to take Metro to the women’s march, local cyclists are organizing group rides departing from Shaw, Mt. Pleasant, Brookland, Arlington, Alexandria, and Vienna. However, marchers planning to ride to the event should remember to bring bike locks; currently, there are no plans for organized bike parking.