ABOUT THAT 100,000

September 26, 2005 | self

[Artemis Webb]

The National Park Service used to make scientific estimates of crowd size on the mall.

It became very common for groups to claim the NPS had PURPOSEFULLY undercounted their numbers. This reached its peak with the so-called "Million Man March"...which drew about 600,000.

The NPS got tired of being doormats for accusations of racism, sexism and all other ism's and they no longer count crowd size.

[Robert A Cook PE]

OK.

So, what you've figured is that IF the "oval" (sidewalk to sidewalk) were jammed full of people, each standing in his/her/its own area of 10 ft^2 (which is reasonable only if the people REALLY like each other!), THEN there would be 76,000 people in the Oval.

So, on Saturday, the Oval was 1/4 - 1/5 full, but there were a few more people on the street, under the trees on the grass, and out of the picture entirely. But there weren't 200,000; 150,000; 100,000, or more on the area.

[finnman69]

Exactly right.

Figured sidewalk to sidewalk.

BTW, the Official Ellipse website lists the park as 52 acres, but that must include the entire rectangular footprint surrounding the Ellipse.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Different rules for rats - if they wanted to show up then they are counted.......

[lOKKI]

One of the questions that I have about the counts is logistical. Moving 100,000 people into and out of D.C. is going to have some impact on the transit systems, parking facilities, and hotels. I haven't heard any reports of long lines of traffic in or out of the city, nor and "crowded hotel" stories ....

There are a few possible answers here for my theory -

1. The city is such that 100,000 one-day visitors doesn't impact it.
2. The impact was there, but wasn't reported - by anyone.
3. The crowd wasn't that big.


Can anyone give any info from this angle?

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

XS, your thoughts?