Everytime
there is a rally in Avenida Bolivar, we hear how many hundreds of thousand people
were there. Let’s put an end to vague numbers, let’s calculate how many buses
it takes to fill Avenida Bolivar or how many people can be packed there. As a
side result, we can put limits on last Saturday’s Chavista rally.
Using
Google Earth, I determined the length of Avenida Bolivar to be 1,255
meters. To determine this number, I used the “ruler” tool in Google Earth as
shown in the image below by the yellow
line
This
probably overestimates the size of the crowd as a stage is setup for those
addressing the crowd, which takes up some 20-40 meters depending on the type
of stage used.
After
that, I used the same tool to measure the width of Avenida Bolivar as shown
here:
This came
out to be 27.5 meters.
Thus, all
of Avenida Bolivar has 34,512 squared meters.
The
question is then, how many people you can get into a square meter. This is
usually the debatable point when estimating crowds. A very desnsely packed
crowd has 6 people per squared meter. A loosely packed crowd where people are
at a comfortable distance from each other has 1.0 person per square meter. Freites
in Venezuela
has counted 2 people per square meter in rallies and 1.5 in recent marches, but
the correct technique is to actually take an aerial picture and count. But of
course, flybys are not allowed during rallies and marches by the Government.
We tested
this at work today and six people per square meter is certainly invasive and
extremely difficult to put up with for more than a few minutes. We decided that
1.5 to 2.0 would be a more adequate number. Note what this says, Avenida
Bolivar, jam packed cuold hold no more 207,000 people, so forget all those
presidctions fo 300,000 or even 1.5 million like what was made for last
Saturday.
Now, a
more reasonable number if the whole avenue is filled and not too packed would
be 69,000 people.
I then
measured the length of Avenida Bolivar as filled by last Saturday’s march in
Google Earth:
This came
out to 851 meters in length, which gave an area of 23,400 squared meters.
Now, from
the traffic cameras
pictures, we know that the density was low in a large part of the area, so
that a density fo 2 would be too high and one probably too low, so that 1.5
seems fair and that is equivalent to some 35,000-36,000 people. From my earlier
collage of Chavista buses, we can say there are 12 windows per bus, times four
across it is about 48 people, 50 with the last row in each bus, so that 720
buses would be sufficient if nobody from Caracas goes.
Just for
completeness, here is an
analysis which correlates the same pictures I used directly with the
traffic pictures
Just keep in mind this same analysis would apply to any static rally on Avenida Bolivar, whether pro or against Chavez, so there has to be consistency in future discussions.
(While I don’t have equivalent pictures of San Cristobal, I am told they filled 11 blocks of Ave. Bolivar for Rosales’ rally on Saturday, which is 18 meters wide. Eleven blocks is 880 meters, thus the length was comaprable but it was not as wide. However, San Cristobal is not Caracas. In the absence of pictures I will not say much more)