No one really knows exactly how many members of #DubNation turned out for the Golden State Warriors championship parade Thursday in Oakland -- though we've heard the number "1 million" thrown around.
But if you're looking for an exact number that gives some idea of how big the crowd was relative to similar events in the past, here's one: BART reports that it recorded 518,744 fare-gate exits on Thursday. That's 23 percent higher than the system's average weekday ridership in May, 421,000 exits.
The transit system wasn't quite as busy as it was June 19, 2015 -- the last time the Warriors and their fans partied on the streets of Oakland. BART reported 548,000 exits that day.
Unsurprisingly, the biggest surge in activity on Thursday occurred at the three downtown Oakland stations: 19th Street, 12th Street and Lake Merritt. Those three stations together averaged 34,125 exits on weekdays last month. Thursday, nearly 91,000 people came through the stations' fare gates. That's a 166 percent increase over the May average.
In longer-term BART history, Thursday was BART's fifth-busiest day ever and only the sixth time in the system's 45-year history that it has exceeded a half-million fare-gate exits in a day. Nine of BART's top 10 ridership days (see the table below) are connected to Bay Area sports events.