Photo by Benjamin Strahs.

Photo by Benjamin Strahs.

The Women’s March on Washington has brought so many people into the streets of D.C. that it will have to switch up its formal march route to the White House.

There are too many people for the normal parade route, according to Director of the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency Chris Geldart. Earlier media accounts said that the demonstration would have to forgo its formal march portion altogether.

But the march will go on, organizers say. Attendees were instructed to use numbered streets to march to the north, turn left on Constitution Ave., go to the Washington Monument, and turn to the right.

The official route would have had them march west on Independence Avenue SW, concluding on 17th Street NW, near the Ellipse and Washington Monument. The march was initially slated to begin at 1:15 p.m.

The switch has left many attendees confused. “It’s time for us to go,” says Maggy Dartiguenave, at the march with daughters Mahlia, 7, and Maya, 7 around 2:30 p.m. They were part of a steady exodus of people leaving Independence Avenue from different exits, though few know where they were going. “We’re just following the crowd.”

While official attendance numbers remain unclear, there are few indicators of just how well-attended the demonstration is. Metro recorded 275,000 trail trips by 11a.m. today, 82,000 more people today than yesterday by the same time, and five times more buses were slated to arrived for the Women’s March than the official inauguration.

Here’s one way to get a sense of just how large the crowd is:

And here’s another:

This one compares it to Inauguration Day:

This post has been updated. Reporting contributed by Rachel Sadon.

Filed Under: women's march, women's march on Washington,