Rally to Restore Sanity, Pt. 2

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A personal report Sunday evening from an Internet friend who attended the Rally to Restore Sanity (reprinted with permission)....

“I will always vote !!  Always !!  Being in a sea of people yesterday on the National Mall showed me, I am not alone....  [The crowd included] like minded sane intelligent people.

They came from All over, most of the people we met were from NY though.  Took me 3.5 hours to get there, when it normally would take about 20 min.  Met so many people who were on their way but just gave up, the roads, trains, cabs, and buses were over capacity. I have never seen anything like it and I have been to many rallies and marches.

Some of the signs I saw that I liked were:
I hate signs
God hates Snuggies
I still like Brett Farve
Speak softly and carry a small stick.
WE are the Green Tea Party [with little green teacups on it]

Great experience with my daughter even if we could not get near the stage or hear a thing.  Watched it on Comedy Central when we got home.”

Monday's follow-up messages from my friend:

(1)

http://www.tbd.com/blogs/tbd-on-foot/2010/11/two-reasons-why-metro-was-so-hairy-on-saturday-3992.html
and
http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/news/PressReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=4717

“The Rally to Create Insanity on Metro:
Two reasons why the trains were so hairy on Saturday:

The first reason -- aside from the fact that 825,437 trips were taken – was a choice made by Metro. For better or worse, they decided to stick to their track-work schedule, even though event organizers told them to expect ridership numbers similar to the Glenn Beck rally -- an event *this one
vastly surpassed.*

Another reason for the overcrowding was a choice made by rally organizers with Comedy Central. They declined to fork out money for extra rail service.  If they had, then some riders wouldn't have been prevented from boarding trains at stations like Columbia Heights and Braddock Road, where would-be passengers had to watch one overstuffed car after another pass them by.

A lot of organizers shell out the dough to make sure trains run with high frequency before and after events. An early opening typically runs about $29,000, and the rates for extra trains depend on how long you want them to run and between which stations. The folks behind the U.S. Army Ten-Miler and the Marine Corps Marathon decided to do it. Though Metro was in talks with Stewart's people about it, they ultimately decided to take a pass, perhaps because they didn't anticipate many more people than at Beck's rally. (Beck's people didn't pay for extra service, either.)

"That's their choice," says Taubenkibel. "They said no."

(2)

"Last night on the news, it was reported that Our Transit system Metro recorded OVER 824,000 trips. It broke the record. Now take the fact that I know of many people who just left the line we were in for the bus and went home, if they were counted it would have been much higher. Then all the people who went to the trains and turned back.

People do care.  We are not alone.  Yesterday did give me hope. Met such wonderful people.

I still say we will always have 12-20% of the population be the outer fringe like the Tea Party crazies."