Posted on 09/12/2009 8:05:13 PM PDT by speelurker
I've put together a Google Spreadsheet with a calculation of a minimum number of people who could have attended today.
Density Calculation Spreadsheet
This is based on analyzing what the camera that was looking down Pennsylvania Avenue saw throughout the event. Here's a snapshow when it's empty:
Here's an analysis of the width of that street using Google Earth:
I’m in the chat bar.
Doh, I’ve never used the chat bar.
How do I get in there?
Little double-down-arrow, right side. First time I’ve looked at this myself.
go here to see a time lapse video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sjvc6baor8
BTW, the crowd was instructed to text in to an announced phone number so the organizers could get a count.
I don’t have any competing way to gauge the number of people in DC today, from any picture or representation , but my instincts tell me it was a lot closer to your figure of 110K, than the figure I have read from 2 sources, which was TEN times that, if not 18 times that.
That seems absurd. That many people would have too much trouble even getting into the city , not to mention the intersection where they are seen to congregate. My idea for the next demo would involve hundreds of strategically selected cities and towns, PLUS DC. The numbers will have to be 50 times bigger than what was reported today, because we do want to shake their sense of sanity , don’t we? What’s called for is PsyOps that every citizen can do himself. Just as we have been doing.
Is it perhaps an IE only thing?
I’m in Safari on a Mac and don’t see anything like that. :-(
The first thing you need to do is make that yellow line perpendicular to the curb (unless you plan to calculate the street area as a trapezoid).
It took over two hours for everyone to march to Mall area. In fact, it may have been three hours. So your 45 minutes is too low. I don’t feel comfortable with the 110,000 anyway. I have been to a rock concert with appx. 120,000 and to professional football games, basketball games and the numbers of people here today totally dwarfed anything I have ever seen before. I believe the 1.2 million number being thrown around although I would accept 500,000 to 600,000 if good source claimed it. But, I would not accept less than 500,000 as being accurate.
What was to prevent those of us who watched it from texting?
Bookmark. Remember too, that there were many reports from people there that every side street leading into the main entrance street was packed as well. Not sure how you could calculate that, but those numbers should be included.
Good luck. Glad someone is willing to tackle this in a logical fashion. There are probably reliable numbers for the mall when it is full. We were prevented from getting on the mall area, so many people were under the trees lining the mall. I believe the 1.5 million estimate.
Ah, non clue. Ok here’s what I’m thinking.
1.3m/s stroll speed seems high.
I think you should include the side-walks.
This doesn’t account for people joining in from other directions, late, etc.
No clue how long it took for the entire group to pass.
your estimate of 110,000 seems reasonable — unofficially the DC Fire Department said 60,000 to 70,000. that’s a lot!
The two million number was misattributed to ABC News, but apparently it was wrong, and Michelle Malkin agrees:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/protest-crowd-size-estimate-falsely-attributed-abc-news/story?id=8558055
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/12/celebrating-the-912-rallies/
Hot Air summarizes the different counts, and concludes “However big it was, it was bigger than expected.”
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/12/how-big-was-the-crowd-in-dc-today/
*no clue, even
By the way, you did not measure the sidewalks. While not full they were near full with marchers. I know cause I walked along them for a couple blocks.
And the buses turned away....
The spreadsheet is updated with this number.
nothing. And also nothing that would help text challenged people like me know how to do it. I'll bet more people at the rally were not counted because they didn't know how to text than people at home counted themselves there by texting from their living rooms. Just a guess . . .
110k does not seem like very many. We get a lot more than that for Gasparilla Pirate Festival in Tampa every year. In 2001 we had our parade when the super bowl was here and 500k came. Seems like DC crowd must have been more than little ole Gasparilla.
“your estimate of 110,000 seems reasonable”
For those who do not have a clue...
Would it be reasonable to reach half-way into the sidewalks for the estimate?
Bookmarked
Is there anybody who was there who can suggest a better rate for the walking speed?
True. I don;t text.
But I’ll bet a lot of texsters nationwide make up the difference.
Yes, that would be reasonable. Now, I spoke with a couple of ladies who were near the front of the march. They said that they arrived at the mall at appx. 10:30 am. That would put the speed for them at about 2 mph. However, people further back took more like an hour to get there which is about 1 mph.
One phenomenon that I have never experienced with such power, was a wave of cheering rushing from a long distance behind me up to and past me. It was actually frightening with its noise level and speed. You actually could feel it as well as hear it. Was really incredible. I have never felt or heard anything like it at professional football or basketball games.
someone said the dc police calculated 1.5 million
This was not the only route people took to get to the Mall. There were at least several hundred buses.
People were walking on the sidewalks as well as the street.
Having been there all day, 110K is way too low. 2M may be too high but 100K is way too low.
I can only imagine what that must have sounded like....
It’s been fun watching the MSM having to keep revising its numbers when it became so apparent that they were low-balling the figures that they couldn’t maintain the lie. “Thousands”, then “Tens of Thousands”. I think that “2 million” figure of Pelosi’s is the usual effort to push a number that will later enable them to claim the effort failed because their inflated number wasn’t reached. Looking at that time lapse, I’d go for a hundred and fifty grand, but the one odd thing is that the time lapse has the flag at half staff, and the webcam has shown it at full staff most of the day. Odd, that.
yeah, the parks service stopped estimating crowd sizes after the Million Man March because it was too political (Farrakhan threatened to sue because the number was less than a million).
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_Man_March#Crowd_size_controversy
After the Million Man March, the Park Police ceased making official crowd size estimates. Roger G. Kennedy, the Park Service director, said Congress had provided the “structure and canons” for counting people, but it had not demanded that the exercise actually be done. He contemplated informing Congress, “Thank you for telling us how to do it, but we won’t be doing it.” In the 1997 appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior, Congress included language that prohibits the National Park Service from conducting crowd estimates in the District of Columbia. The legislation also states that if event organizers want crowd estimates, they should contract with an outside agency.
Let's open it to the floor -- would the receiver get information as to which cell phone tower the text message came from?
There was never any mention of that.
I was there and when he asked us to text he didn’t say it was a way to count us, he said it was a way we can all keep in touch. I looked around and as far as I could see, I was the only one I could see in my range who actually took out their phone.
Okay...referring to your post #30...the line you are using to measure needs to be perpendicular to the street lane lines which are parallel to the street edges. Using those as your guide may help you get a straighter line... :) It will shorten the width, but be more accurate. Earlier I saw a time lapsed video of the protest. They used a three and a half hour window to shoot it in, but the streets were not full for the entire time. I believe the link was on Free Republic on another thread, I will look and see if I can find it.
What was your conclusion as I admire your opinion? And do you think it was 2 million?
I definitely know the answer to that and it’s no. There’s no information as to where an SMS came from when received other than the MO (mobile origination number).
Here is a link to the time lapse view of protest;
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2338301/posts
I knew a freeper would get around to doing this and have eagerly been waiting. Most estimates sound a little low or way to high. This seems more plausible although I wish it were closer to the 250,000 of ‘63. That would have really put the fear into ‘em! LOL
I’m smart enough to be a freeper but not smart enough to do anything like this. Thanks!
“BTW, the crowd was instructed to text in to an announced phone number so the organizers could get a count.”
I never heard of that, the size of the crowd was so large that most never heard those who were speakers... I only caught little pieces all day...
I’ve seen crowds in excess of 100 thousand, and this march seemingly dwarfs them. I’d guess easily over 500k.
You can fit 110,000 people in your typical college Bowl stadium and that is just the people in the seats.
You had at least a mile of people 100 yards wide. If you give all of them a square yard to stand in, you are looking at a minimum of 176,000 people. This doesn't count the people on the side streets.
I'd personally estimate the crowd at at least 5 college stadiums packed with people.
Great find! I just added an analysis of that video to the spreadsheet.
The minimum has jumped to ~250k.
I spoke to a capitol police officer who was behind the stage(with Dick Armey).He said there was a bigger crowd than th”million man march”. HENCE; The crowd was bigger than one million!
.................I’d go for a hundred and fifty grand, but the one odd thing is that the time lapse has the flag at half staff, and the webcam has shown it at full staff most of the day. Odd, that..........................
Certainly odd that the flag position changed! Why, on the same day - Day after 9/11 mourning; after the Swimmer had been planted!
Do we have a potential credibility problem???
In a few days we can check Metro ridership numbers and compare them with the inauguration and other Saturdays:
http://www.wmata.com/rail/disruption_reports/viewReportArchive.cfm?Archive_Date=92009
Ok, but the people weren’t just on Pennsylvania Avenue. They spilled over into other areas, quite a few of them actually and Homeland Security(according to a UK paper)says UP to 2 million. I think at least 200,000 and it could have been many more, people kept coming and going also, not to mention those that were turned away because the cops said there was no more room for them.
“Great find! I just added an analysis of that video to the spreadsheet.
The minimum has jumped to ~250k.”
Okay, now remember...there was a substantial amount of people who did not take that route to the mall. Many were dropped of in buses near the mall...many simply went to the mall by another route. Not sure how you can figure that out...
It was not a static crowd. People appeared to be arriving and leaving throughout the duration of the event. From my perspective there were significant numbers along the length of the Mall. Also, two nearby Metro stations service the Capitol area. All of which complicate crowd assessment. I agree, I would lower bound the number at around 500,000 but 2 million does seem a bit high (this somewhat based upon my recollection of aerial images of past events).
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