New rules to be issued Monday will lower the number of ticketed bleacher seats along the parade route from 20,000 seats to 8,700, leaving much more of the route open to people without tickets, Barna said.

Seat tickets had sold for between $15 and $150 in 2005 to help pay for the inaugural parade. Details for the 2009 parade tickets have not been set because Obama's Presidential Inaugural Committee, which organizes the parade, is being formed.

There will also be designated "free speech" areas for protesters along the parade route, Barna said.

The inauguration has been designated a National Special Security Event, giving the U.S. Secret Service the lead in coordinating all law enforcement agencies to secure the event. There are 58 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies working together.

The largest crowd ever recorded on the National Mall was for President Lyndon B. Johnson's 1965 inauguration. At the time, the park service estimated 1.2 million people descended on the area. In 1981, President Ronald Ronald Reagan's inauguration drew about 500,000 people, and President Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration drew about 800,000 people, according to park service estimates.

Congressional offices are reporting tens of thousands of requests from their constitutents for the 240,000 tickets for the inauguration ceremony. As of Thursday, the office of Sen. Jim Webb, a Virginia Democrat, had received 26,000 requests. Webb sent a letter Thursday to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who heads the Joint Congressional Inaugural Committee, requesting that Virginia's proximity to Washington be considered in its allotment of tickets.

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