USA Bus Lines

Where Do You Park 10,000 Charter Buses?

Where Do You Park 10,000 Charter Buses? Getting Riders to Swearing-In A Trickier Puzzle for Planners By Lena H. Sun Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, December 9, 2008; A01 Transportation planners for President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration say an estimated 10,000 charter buses will arrive in the Washington area for the event, posing what they say would be an unprecedented logistical nightmare. The estimate is based on bookings, queries from operators and projections of crowd size from D.C. officials, according to Eron Shosteck, a senior vice president of the American Bus Association, which represents 800 independent bus operators. That number does not include smaller buses or passenger vans organized by churches and other groups.

Public Comments

1. Are you kidding? I'd take a taxi
2. It's not as impossible as you think. First of all, it's a holiday for Federal employees in the DC area, so the parking lots that they use, including the massive Pentagon lot, will be mostly empty. Second, there are huge parking lots at the stadiums around Washington, including FedEx field, that can be used as staging areas. Difficult yes, but not impossible if you do a lot of detailed planning, and maximize use of Metro.