The story

Hundreds of thousands of visitors to the National Mall crowded Metro stations around Washington on Tuesday, slowing movement to a crawl after the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States.

"All of our stations are overcrowded," said Lisa Farbstein, spokeswoman for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. "It's taking hours for people to get back into the stations."

Police were holding people outside some Metro stations until there was room for them to get in, Farbstein said. Read full article »

CNN's Jeanne Meserve, Pam Benson, Kevin Bohn, Carol Cratty and Rob Frehse contributed to this report.

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