Crowd Size in San Francisco January 18

Network news stations report the crowd at 50,000 or "tens of thousands", when in fact, that number is impossibly inaccurate. Public transporation backups and bridge traffic caused a sustained influx of people pouring onto the Embarcadero.

The march started at 11 a.m, and was still going strong at 3:00 p.m., that is, approximately 20 people per each 3 ft wide horizontal slice of Market Street for a more accurate estimate as follows:

Starting from: Market St At The Embarcadero
Arriving at: Polk and Grove, San Francisco, CA
Distance: 2.4 miles = 4224 yards X 20 people ~= 84,000 people who were walking at 2.4 mph (to make it easier) X 4 hours = 336,000 people! That doesn't count those who simply arrived at the Civic Center Plaza without actually marching, or those that spread out all over from Union Square to Moscone Center carrying signs. However, the Civic Center Plaza itself probably cannot hold more than 50,000 bodies at the same time, so people were necessarily pushed out.

Photos:

1. 2:30 p.m, still going strong.

2. Peace pretzel