GO WMATA!!!!!!!!!!!!

WMATA drink coaster from a bar.

WMATA finally released "estimates" for the number of trips yesterday. See the press release "Metro sets new record for highest ridership day of all time." See, they have to do estimates, because as the Washington Business Journal points out in "Metro hits all-time high on Inauguration Day" that:

Crush capacity at stations near the Mall led Metro to allow visitors to leave the gates without swiping Metrocards or inserting tickets.

Julie Nguyen, 15, left, and Camila Alva, 16, both of Falls Church, Va., ride the subway home after watching the inauguration of Barack Obama from the National Mall in Washington Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2009. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

From the WMATA press release:

On Inauguration Day, Metro provided about 1,120,000 rail trips, 423,000 bus trips and 1,721 MetroAccess trips for a total of 1,544,721 trips, the highest ridership day ever in the transit authority’s history.

With hundreds of thousands of people in town for the Inauguration of President Barack Obama, Metrorail set a new record for the transit agency’s highest ridership on Tuesday, Jan. 20. when rail rides alone accounted for 1,120,000 trips surpassing the previous Metrorail high of 866,681 trips, which occurred the previous day, on Monday, Jan. 19.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A train on the greater Washington, DC, "Metro" system. AFP Photo/Paul J. Richards.