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Metro ridership tops 1 million, sets Saturday record

The line to get into the Ballston Metro station to make it to the Women's March on Washington in D.C. Saturday morning, Jan. 21, 2017. (WTOP/Dennis Foley)
The line to get into the Ballston Metro station to make it to the Women’s March on Washington in D.C. Saturday morning, Jan. 21, 2017. (WTOP/Dennis Foley)
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The line to get into the Ballston Metro station to make it to the Women's March on Washington in D.C. Saturday morning, Jan. 21, 2017. (WTOP/Dennis Foley)
The scene outside Wiehle Reston Metro around 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017. (Courtesy Gretchen Gyrich)
Crowds flood L'Enfant Plaza Metro station as people head toward the Women's March on Washington on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017. (Courtesy Lauren Dunne)
Crowds of people fill L'Enfant Plaza Metro station, chanting "Fired up, ready to go" as they head toward the Women's March on Washington Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017. (WTOP/Max Smith)
A sea of pink hat-wearing people ride the train toward the Women's March on Washington. Trains began to fill up at Union Station around 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017, the day of the march. (WTOP/Max Smith)
There wasn't much room on the trains as people headed into downtown D.C. for the Women's March on Washington. (WTOP/Dennis Foley)

WASHINGTON — Transportation officials in Washington say more than a million trips were taken on the city’s rail system Saturday — a tally that is hundreds of thousands more than on Inauguration Day and sets a Saturday record.

Metro officials said Saturday was the busiest in Metro’s history. The transit agency tweeted Sunday that 1,001,616 trips were taken on the rail system on Saturday, the day of the Women’s March on Washington.

Metro spokesman Dan Stessel had said that on Friday, the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration, just over 570,000 trips were taken on the rail system.

Saturday’s ridership number topped the previous Saturday ridership record set in 2010 on the day of the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. More than 825,000 trips were taken that day.

In an emailed statement on Sunday, Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld said Metro trains, buses and paratransit logged more than 2 million trips between Friday and Saturday. Metrorail accounted for 1.6 million of those trips.

WTOP’s Tiffany Arnold contributed to this report.

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