800,000 turned up, apparently
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across America to protest gun control following the fatal shooting that killed 17 students and teachers in Florida at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Officials originally forecast approximately 500,000 people would attend the tentpole march in Washington DC but the “March for Our Lives” crowd exceeded expectations, they say.
Shortly after one o’clock on the day of the rally Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen felt confident enough about attendance to take a dig at President Trump.
“I can tell you for sure, it’s larger than the Trump inauguration,” Van Hollen told The Hill.
A few hours after the March for Our Lives concluded “officials” set the figure with reporters at 800,000 people.
Officials connected with today’s #MarchForOurLives here in D.C. tell @NBCNews that they are estimating a crowd size of *800,000* after forecasts of 500,000.
Sure feels likes that from our vantage point on the ground.
— Jacob Soboroff (@jacobsoboroff) March 24, 2018
A crowd that size would push past most estimations of the Trump inaugural.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) typically steps in to provide a barometer for the estimated size of demonstrations like the March for Our Lives, using ridership numbers taken during the day.
Metrorail ridership for March 24, 2018: 558,735 #wmata #mfoldc
— Metro Forward (@wmata) March 25, 2018
WMATA figures from Saturday afternoon are comparable to Trump’s inaugural.
For the full day, the Trump inauguration attracted 570,557 Metro riders.
WMATA ridership has spiked above one million riders on two days since the transit authority began keeping such statistics — the day of Obama’s inauguration (1,120,000 riders) and the first Women’s March (1,001,613).
