Was the crowd at the Warriors parade really bigger than the audience at Trump's inauguration?

The Golden State Warriors victory parade is seen as it passes Lake Merritt in Oakland, Calif. on Thursday, June 15, 2017. The Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 4-1 in the NBA Finals to claim their second national title in three years. less The Golden State Warriors victory parade is seen as it passes Lake Merritt in Oakland, Calif. on Thursday, June 15, 2017. The Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 4-1 in the NBA Finals to claim their second ... more Photo: Elijah Nouvelage, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Elijah Nouvelage, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 14 Caption Close Was the crowd at the Warriors parade really bigger than the audience at Trump's inauguration? 1 / 14 Back to Gallery

There were quite a lot of people in Oakland Thursday morning, in case you hadn't noticed.

The city of Oakland estimated more than 1 million people would come out to the East Bay for the massive parade celebrating the Warriors' NBA Finals win, and based on the aerial photos, it doesn't look like they were far off.

People on Twitter were quick to suggest that the crowd was actually bigger that the assembled masses who came to see President Trump sworn in back in January, setting off a long-running debate about crowd size.

Warriors parade crowd size bigger than Trump inauguration. No surprise Don't tell Trump, he might not like it#. @warriors @indivisibleATX pic.twitter.com/hykBxUYw8U — Jared Price (@JRayPrice) June 15, 2017

20 times more people at the @Warriors Victory Parade in Oakland than at @realDonaldTrump's inauguration!! #WarriorsParade — KEVIN CΔLLO (@KevmoTadeo) June 15, 2017

what event had a higher attendance: Warriors' parade or Trump's inauguration — Emily Cleckner (@emcleck) June 15, 2017

Since we never got a final number on the Inauguration, it's essentially impossible to figure out the answer, but here's what we know about the transit numbers:

Two of the exits at Oakland's 12th Street Station were forced to temporarily close due to overcrowding, and by the early afternoon, 254,562 people had already exited through BART's turnstiles systemwide (which BART reports is 40 percent more than that time on a normal Thursday).

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday morning that BART's ridership for the day was already well on its way to being dubbed BART's "biggest day ever." For the record, the day that currently holds that title is the 2012 San Francisco Giants parade, when 568,068 rode the system.

Today's number, of course, doesn't include those fans who walked, bused, drove, or took taxis or rideshares to the event; the number of people who traveled by any of those methods is unknown.

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By contrast, it's difficult to say how many attended the inauguration of Donald Trump in January 2017. The nonpartisan fact-check site Politifact puts that number somewhere between 250,000 to 600,000 people, but the Washington Post wrote at the time that 570,557 trips were taken on the Washington D.C. Metro between 4 a.m. and midnight that Friday.

We'll wait for the National Parks Service to weigh in before drawing conclusions.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.

