December 10, 2008, 2:26 am
Inauguration Might Be Huge Logistics Disaster
Wanted: prime parking. Must be able to store 10,000 tour buses. Contact Washington Inaugural Planners.
The Washington Post has been running articles all week talking about the Inaugural, saying that planners estimate that 2 million to 4 million people could come to Washington to see it. It's expected that they'll come in cars and tour buses, planes and trains, and place a strain on the local infrastructure never before seen - or for that matter, planned for.
Some of the items the local news media believes might happen in the apocalyptic event known as the Inauguration:
- Cell phones may fail to work due to the crush of activity.
- So many media outlets want to cover the event that many may not get full access.
- Broadband internet access may be slowed down by the large number of visitors.
- Metro delays could be substantial, with Metro planning 15 hours of rush-hour service (a record) on inauguration day [WMATA].
- Hundreds of thousands of people may remain in DC for days before and after the inauguration, tying up traffic for those of us who live here.
- 10,000 tour buses may arrive, with no place to park.
- DC government officials are urging local residents to stock up on essentials like bread and milk, because supply trucks may not make it through and stores will be inundated.
I, for one, may attempt to vacate the District during the "festivities", or the apocalypse, whichever actually happens. The company may close the office on January 20th, and perhaps even the day before; that would be a reasonably good idea given the crush of people that will make parking, driving, walking, or really, moving at all impossible.
For comparisons sake, the most attended inauguration to this point was Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 swearing-in. Washington, DC has an average population of 500,000 people, with 6 million in the metro area (that is, the area served by Metro). The minimum expectation to be in Washington is 2 million, meaning that visitors will outnumber residents 4:1.
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