News & Politics

Metro Is Packed With People Headed to the Women’s March

Seems a lot busier than it was for inauguration.

Photograph by Anna Marina Savvidis.

Fewer people rode Metro on Friday than at least the last three presidential inaugurations, with the transit agency counting just 193,000 riders en route to what appeared to be a lightly attended ceremony. (Compare that with the estimated 513,000 passengers in 2009 for the first inauguration of Barack Obama.) But if these photos shared on social media Saturday morning are any indication, the Women’s March on Washington is making up for the lull in Metro ridership on the day of President Trump‘s inauguration.

As of 11 AM, the transit agency said, about 275,000 people had already boarded. That’s eight times the rate for a typical Saturday, and busier than many weekdays.

Organizers of the Women’s March recently upped their crowd estimate to 500,000, while local officials processed at least four times as many bus-parking permits for the demonstration than they did for the inauguration. These photos Metro stations packed with people headed to the march tell the story even better:

Staff Writer

Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.