THE US capital came to life well before dawn Tuesday, as out-of-towners and area residents alike overwhelmed mass transit and filled city streets to witness the swearing-in of President Barack Obama. A transport official estimated that a whopping 318,422 people crowded the Washington subway system early Tuesday headed to witness the inauguration of Barack Obama. Energized by the historic moment, tens of thousands of people turned Washington's orderly grid of streets into a festive party scene. Ready to endure below-freezing temperatures, they streamed up from subway stations and past parked buses, emergency vehicles and street vendors, bound for the National Mall lawn in front of the Capitol for the inauguration. “This is the culmination of two years of work,” said Obama activist Akin Salawu, 34, of Brooklyn, New York, who helped the candidate as a community organizer and Web producer. “We got on board when Obama was the little engine who could. He's like a child you've held onto. Now he's going out into the world.” By 4 a.m., lines of riders formed in suburban parking lots for the Metro transit system, which opened early and put on extra trains for the expected rush. Many parking lots filled up and had to be closed. Streets around the Capitol quickly filled with people, and security checkpoints were mobbed. Warming tents and other facilities on the Mall were late opening because traffic and crowds delayed staffers from reaching them. Ticket holders approaching the Inaugural site on Capitol Hill awaited security sweeps in a line estimated at thousands. Connie Grant of Birmingham, Alabama, said she got up at 3:30 a.m. after coming to Washington with a group. Three hours later she was still on 7th street waiting for police to clear the way into the Mall. She said the wait didn't matter. “I sacrificed and came here. To me, this is very historic. I just wanted to be here.” Christian Alderson of Berryville, Virginia, said he was in Memphis, Tennessee when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. “That day was sorrowful,” Alderson, 73, said as he stood near the mall. “This is a dream come true for me.” At the opposite end of town, Georgetown University students chanted “Obama!” and “Fired up Ready to Go!” as they walked down M Street toward the Mall. Suburban subway riders also seemed to be in a jubilant mood, despite the early hour. In Fredericksburg, Virginia, an hour south of Washington, chants of “Obama! Obama!” rang out at a commuter rail station when the line started moving at 5 a.m. for the first trip into Washington. World history teacher Calvin Adams of Arlington, Virginia, said he got up extra early so he could witness history being made first-hand and teach it to his classes. “Eventually I'll teach American history,” said Adams, 23. “I'll say, ‘This is how it works because I've been there, I've seen it.”' The joyous mood was tempered only by delays and by the dashed expectations of revelers eager to get an up-close look at history. Alice Williams, a 51-year-old teacher of gifted children from Kansas City, Missouri, had coveted the purple tickets that would placed her in front of the Capitol. Instead, she was about a half mile away. “We got blocked off; there was too much traffic and no guidance,” she said forlornly. “I've been walking for an hour and a half. All I want to do is see my president sworn in” One parade entrance was supposed to open at 7 a.m. The crowd, which was one-block deep, counted down at 7 a.m. The gate did not open. The chants got louder at 7:30 a.m., but the gates remain closed. DC police projected inaugural crowds between 1 million and 2 million -- topping the 1.2 million people who were at Lyndon B. Johnson's 1965 inauguration, the largest crowd the National Park Service has on record. Thousands packed the Mall hours before the festivities began, many of them waving American flags. Traffic backed up at parking lots at metro rail stops and even at 5 a.m. trains were packed. Some die-hards camped out to be first at check-points. People were in a festive mood, despite the cold and economic gloom that that has millions unemployed and tens of thousands homeless. “I brought my patience,” said Matt Rohrbaugh, 37, who had travelled from Santa Cruz, California with his two sons aged 12 and 15. “Everyone else seems to have brought their patience as well,” he said, referring to the long lines at checkpoints. Obama in recent days has stressed that Americans should expect even rougher economic times and that his plan to revive the struggling economy will take time to work. No president has begun his four-year term in office with as much public confidence -- a 78 percent approval rating in the most recent Gallup poll -- and a sharp contrast with outgoing President George W. Bush, whose ratings plumbed record lows. His eight years in power over, Bush returned home to Texas on Tuesday. Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney pulled a muscle in his back while moving boxes and was in a wheelchair for the inauguration ceremony, the White House said. Obama, who sharply criticized Bush during his campaign, spent part of the morning with him before taking the oath of office. Earlier in the day, Obama and his wife, Michelle, and the Bidens attended a church service before going to the nearby White House to have coffee with the Bushes and the Cheneys. The group proceeded to the US Capitol for the ceremony in which Obama repeated a short oath, by placing his hand on a Bible used by Abraham Lincoln at his first inauguration in 1861, standing on the western steps of the capitol, a building that was partly built by black slaves. His swearing-in was followed by the U.S. Marine Corps band playing “Hail to the Chief” and a 21
