It wasn’t the biggest rally Washington, DC, has ever witnessed, but it did set a Saturday record for ridership on the Metro, the city’s underground and aboveground rail system. The event, known as the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, was put on by Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, whose fans packed Metro trains and set a new record for Saturday travel with 825,437 trips.

 

The previous record (786,358 trips) was set on June 8, 1991, when the nation’s capital hosted a victory celebration for American soldiers returning from the Gulf War. The third highest total (735,909 trips) was produced by a Promise Keepers rally in 1997. The average number of trips on a Saturday is 350,000. On the day President Barack Obama was inaugurated, January 20, 2009 (a Tuesday), the Metro trains recorded about 1,120,000 trips.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Metro Sets New Saturday Record (by Kriston Capps, NBCWashington.com)

Metro Crowds Prompt Fear, Diminish Sanity (by Kriston Capps, NBCWashington.com)

Did Metro Fail Saturday? (by Dr. Gridlock, Washington Post)