EFFICTIVE AS OF TODAY!!! INAUGURATION SERVICE

[79MetroExtraMD]

We went down to take part in today's inauguration ceremonies.  We attempted to park at Shady Grove around 7:30 AM only to be turned away as the lot was full.  Not wanting to bother with local buses, I decided to drive up to the Germantown Town Center.  Caught one of Ride On's special shuttles to Shady Grove station.  Train was packed by time we reached Bethesda.  We decided to try for L'Enfant Plaza, but that station had closed and we rode over to the Pentagon.  At the Pentagon WMATA was providing free shuttles to 14th Street near the Mall.  They used Four Mile Run buses on this shuttle.  It was cold has heck, but I couldn't be here in the DC area and miss such an important historical event.  The Mall was packed with people like Metrorail, but the crowds on the train as well as the Mall were very orderly.  I'd even go as far as saying people were generally polite and in very good spirit.  After President Obama's speech we made our way back to the shuttle bus to the Pentagon for the train ride back home.  It was an exhausting, cold day, but I'm grateful to have been able to take part, but happy to finally be back home.

I was on the opposite side of the spectrum. Greenbelt Station. I rode down on a crowded B30 (6142) missed a tic by a couple mins. Got down to Greenbelt, a sea of people trying to get onto the Metro. It was just utter "chaos". I got a some pics at Greenbelt of the buses flowing in and out of the station and one of the crowd waiting to get into the Metro. I decided to just head to campus and watch the inauguration online.

Evening. I rode on the C2 with an operator I know and it was just the same chaos of folks trying to get a B30 to get up to the airport. A tic was already full leaving the station with about 200 or so folks waiting for a bus. I decided to wait a little while to let the crowd ease up a bit. Some tempers flared with people getting very impatient waiting for a bus. I passed up one tic to let folks get on just as another one was coming in. A standing room only ride but well worth it heading back home. I managed to get a few shots at BWI including a few of two artics at the same time.

All in all, I have to commend Metro for coping with the crowds and getting them down to the festivities and back home safely and as quickly as possible.

[WES]

I went down to the parade route, instead of going to the swearing in ceremonies.

Let's just say I was freezing my hindpotts off.

I decide to take metrobus all the way down instead of the rail.  Getting to was pretty easy, getting out was not as easy.  They had Metro Bs blocking the northern parts of the parade routes, a couple of blocks before the checkpoints.  Some Bs were in service including 9362 which I caught leaving the downtown area.  The ride was kind of stiff, but the bus looks great after being repainted.  It was probably one of the ones that was in Carmen E Turner, they pulled out for  extra service. This sucker also LED lights in the front stairwell.

Some other notable sightings was seeing 9750 on the 80, 9370 on the X2, Rode 9362 on the X2, 9305 was laying over at Minnesota Avenue and just missed a Metro B on the U8.

Rode:

2016 A12-Addison Road and MLK Hwy

5420 U8-Minnesota Avenue Station

5239 X2-Downtown

9362 X2 Minnesota Avenue

5412 U8 Capitol Heights Station

2012 F14 Last

[WMATAGMOAGH]

Someone finally sent a link showing the ridership stats hour by hour, apparently it was on the inauguration section home page: http://www.wmata.com/getting_around/metro_events/inauguration_riders.cfm?nocache

If you don't want to click, the short story is they have a new record as of 5 PM and should break the 1 million rider mark in the next hour, if it hasn't happened already.

[Scrabbleship]

A friend of mine got a picture of 4078 serving as a roadblock with people on top of it (!!) trying to get pictures. And I thought people climbing up porta-potties were bad...

[WMATAGMOAGH]

A friend of mine got a picture of 4078 serving as a roadblock with people on top of it (!!) trying to get pictures. And I thought people climbing up porta-potties were bad...

I think the stupid award of the day goes to the people who thought walking on the frozen Capitol Reflecting Pool was a good idea.  Imagine if they had fallen through...

[WayneNYC]

All in all, I have to commend Metro for coping with the crowds and getting them down to the festivities and back home safely and as quickly as possible.

I totally agree.  This had to be one of their biggest challenges and I think they did a great job.

[WMAveteran]

We avoided METRO altogether and took the special MARC trains on the Brunswick Line from Metropolitan Grove station to Union Station. The trains were on time, operated express to Union Station in about 35 minutes and there were plenty of seats with no standees and working restrooms.  In fact, the crew recommended passengers use the trains' restrooms rather than the ones in Union Station. The mens restroom in Union Station was a disgrace with several urinals out of service, water all over the floor and overflowing toilets.  It looked like a third world country!

The only chaos was outside Union Station in the afternoon as the trains returned to Maryland. Because of planned inaugural activities in Union Station, access to the station was limited to the side doors across from the Postal Museum.  Thousands of people trying to reach AMTRAK, VRE and MARC were forced to march with tickets held high through a gauntlet of security officers posted every 5 feet.  I think it was a little silly to host an inaugural activity in Union Station on a day when transportation options were so limited.  At one point the people waiting started singing "We shall catch a train, we shall catch a train, we shall catch a train someday" to the tune of "We shall overcome."   

All in all, it was a wonderful experience that was perfected when the people on the Mall pointed at the helicopter carrying Bush out of town on his last official trip "booed" and sang "na na na na, na na na na, hey, hey, good bye." 

[rideonrulez]

I was working ALL DAY unfortunately, but at least got to go back to the office and watch the Inauguration for a bit before heading back out into the cold. Now I can say that Shady Grove Station had parking and plenty of it. But it was wierd to see a traffic jam at 4am on I-370 going into the station.

Wayne-I did'nt see you as I was at Shady Grove Station.

[Perry]

I was hoping everything was going ok.  I was keeping up to the minute on the Post before I had to go to a meeting.  Reading about everyone freezing----it was 75 and gorgeous here yesterday. :-)I was actually at our Simmons Yard at a meeting 12 EDT so I missed all of that and went to the driver's lounge just after he finished. 

[WayneNYC]

Chris - I guess I may have just missed you as I was on both sides of Shady Grove.  When we first drove up, to the small lot there was a guy there turning people away.  I asked if the big garage was full and he said yes.  I found it hard to beleive, but I didn't want to argue or waste more time so I decided to head to to Germantown.  Come down to Shady Grove on 5914.  We passed through again on our way home around 3:00 PM,, but we went straight to the east side for the 100 (caught 5951) back to Germantown. 

Perry - Are you making us green with envy again:-).  It was cold as heck out there, but we was prepared.  I was wearing a sizable parka, ski pants, wool thermal socks, hat that also covered my ears and some thick gloves.  We also had those hand and feet warmers that work for a few hours.  Those things are cool and don't cost a lot either.

[WMATAGMOAGH]

Here is the press release from Metro.  However, as Sand Box John pointed out, we may never know how many people actually used Metro yesterday because they allowed people to enter without paying at several stations in order to manage crowds.

Metro sets new record for highest ridership day of all time
For immediate release: January 21, 2009

1,544,000 trips taken on Inauguration Day
On Inauguration Day, Metro provided about 1,120,000 rail trips, 423,000 bus trips and 1,721 MetroAccess trips for a total of 1,544,721 trips, the highest ridership day ever in the transit authority's history.

With hundreds of thousands of people in town for the Inauguration of President Barack Obama, Metrorail set a new record for the transit agency's highest ridership on Tuesday, Jan. 20. when rail rides alone accounted for 1,120,000 trips surpassing the previous Metrorail high of 866,681 trips, which occurred the previous day, on Monday, Jan. 19.

On Metrobus, of the 423,000 trips taken, 228,000 were on the 23 "Presidential" bus corridors; 3,000 were on supplemental service to park and ride lots in Maryland and Virginia (outside the beltway); 177,000 were on regular route service; and 15,000 were on special shuttles put into place at locations to supplement crowding in the rail system.

"Our Metro system wasn't designed to transport this many people in such a short time, but we did it," said Metro General manager John Catoe. "Months and months of planning paid off. Throughout Inauguration Weekend, we effectively dealt with record-breaking crowds. On Sunday, we moved 616,324 people on rail beating our previous Sunday rail ridership record by 75,000. On Monday (Jan. 19) we set a short-lived weekday record of 866,681 trips. Then on Inauguration Day itself, our rail ridership surpassed the one million mark. The 10,000 employees of Metro stepped up, and today we feel a glowing sense of pride in knowing the important role we played in making the Inauguration a success."

Between Sunday, Jan. 18, and Tuesday, Jan. 20, Metro ran 60 hours of rail service out of 72 hours during those days. Metro we set three rail ridership records--a Sunday record and back-to-back weekday records. Between Sunday and Tuesday Metrorail carried an estimated 2.6 million trips on rail.

More than 8,000 Metro employees worked on Inauguration day including 417 Transit Police officers; 266 volunteer police officers from other police agencies; and 340 people who volunteered to be Metro Ambassadors.

To date Metro has sold 93,380 Commemorative Obama SmarTrip cards. They are still available for purchase online and in our sales centers. Metro also sold 53,462 Commemorative Obama One-Day rail passes.

Metro saw unprecedented crowds throughout the day. Several parking lots started filling at end-of-the-line stations before 5:30 a.m. At the request of local law enforcement, Metro let motorists through some lots without paying after lines of vehicles began to back up on local roads. Delays were caused by riders blocking doors and causing breakdowns, and a woman fell onto the tracks at Gallery-Place Chinatown Metrorail station, which disrupted service at the station and Metro Center for about 45 minutes. Federal Triangle Metrorail station also was closed for four-and-a-half hours unexpectedly due to local law enforcement's concerns about crowding at the National Mall. However, Metro officials say the biggest reason for delays was the sheer volume of people. Police periodically held people from entering extremely crowded stations until crowds on the station platforms eased.

###

Thirteen of Metrorail's top 20 highest weekday ridership days occurred in the summer of 2008. Combined with Metrobus ridership, Metro typically provides about 1.2 million rail and bus trips on an average weekday.

Metrorail's Top 20 Weekday Ridership Days
Date Ridership Event
1 01-20-09 1,120,000 Obama Inauguration
2 01-19-09 866,681 Obama inaugural events
3 07-11-08 854,638 Baseball/Women of Faith Conference
4 06-09-04 850,636 Reagan State Funeral
5 06-25-08 846,388 Smithsonian Folklife Festival/Baseball
6 07-10-08 844,530 Baseball
7 07-08-08 835,072 Baseball/Basketball
8 07-02-08 834,956 Smithsonian Folklife Festival
9 04-03-07 831,508 Cherry Blossoms/Baseball
10 06-24-08 831,464 Baseball/Basketball
11 06-20-08 829,998 Baseball/Basketball
12 04-24-08 828,973 Baseball/Basketball
13 04-17-08 828,418 Pope Visit/Soccer
14 04-11-08 828,132 Baseball/Cherry Blossoms
15 06-27-08 825,862 Smithsonian Folklife Festival/Baseball
16 06-18-08 823,516 No Event
17 07-01-08 822,931 No Event
18 04-10-06 821,283 Immigrant Rights Rally
19 06-19-08 819,979 No Event
20 06-26-08 819,722 Smithsonian Folklife Festival