I’m in the chat bar.
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.
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.
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.
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/
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.
Bookmarked
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.
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!
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.
Measured straight across the street, the distance would only a bit over 27 m instead of the 31.35m you’ve indicated.
Would that make a difference in your results?
This Jan MSNBC article provides some history on crowd counting in DC...
Could 2 million jam into the mall?
Happily for the District of Columbia, the inauguration crowd certainly won’t reach electoral landslide dimensions. But if people jam into the 81 acres of the National Mall between 1st and 14th Streets Northwest at a tight 5 square feet per person, about 700,000 could squeeze in. The open area around the Washington Monument between Constitution and Independence Avenues, back to 17th Street Northwest, could wedge in another 700,000 at the same density. And assuming a looser crowd far back from the inauguration stand on the steps of the Capitol, perhaps another half a million could be milling around in the Mall area in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
Therefore, it is at least physically possible to pack something approaching 2 million Americans into the 2.1-mile stretch between the Capitol steps and Lincoln’s feet.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28662672//
A method for mob measurement
Even absent publicity-driven pressures to hype the size of a public gathering, no crowd that doesn’t go through a turnstile can be counted without some margin of error. (And as recent election recounts have proved, even counting something as simple as a stack of ballots can have a considerable margin of error.) But some fairly simple math can be used to make defensible estimates of crowd sizes.
The method goes back to the late 1960s and a University of California at Berkeley journalism professor named Herbert Jacobs, whose office was in a tower that overlooked the plaza where students frequently gathered to protest the Vietnam War. The plaza was marked with regular grid lines, which allowed Jacobs to see how many grid squares were filled with students and how many students on average packed into each grid.
After gathering data on numerous demonstrations, Jacobs came up with some rules of thumb that still are used today by those serious about crowd estimation. A loose crowd, one where each person is an arm’s length from the body of his or her nearest neighbors, needs 10 square feet per person. A more tightly packed crowd fills 4.5 square feet per person. A truly scary mob of mosh-pit density would get about 2.5 square feet per person.
The trick, then, is to accurately measure the square feet in the total area occupied by the crowd and divide it by the appropriate figure, depending on assessment of crowd density...
March starts at c. 42nd frame of time laspe and ends at c. 96th frame, making for a minimum of 54 minutes from start to finish on PA Ave.
Another update from Michelle Malkin has this post:
Here is a link to a schematic of the national mall used to esitmate crowd sizes. It was used in references to planning for BO’s inauguration.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-01-19-crowd_N.htm
I see a fork and knife icon. But no spork?
NBC Report Says Their People Estimate 9/12 Crowd in the “Hundreds of Thousands” - Video 9/12/09
http://www.freedomslighthouse.com/2009/09/nbc-report-says-their-people-estimate.html