Subway ridership down for Yankee Stadium in 2009

April 26, 2010 by Benjamin Kabak 14 Comments

New York City Transit has released its annual survey of ridership data, and the agency found that, despite two new stadiums, subway ridership at the two stops serving the city’s ballparks declined from 2008 to 2009. In Queens, the Mets/Willets Point station saw just 1.826 million swipes down from 2.036 million in 2008 while in the Bronx, 161st St./Yankee Stadium saw traffic drop from 8.576 million rides to 8.41 million. The Times speculated this morning that the decline at Citi Field was due to the Mets’ poor play while the Yanks saw their numbers stay relatively constant despite an overall 2.7 percent drop in ridership due to the eight playoff games in the Bronx. I posited at Second Ave. Sagas that smaller capacity ballparks were to blame. After all, Citi Field and new Yankee Stadium hold 20 and 10 percent fewer fans, respectively, than the two parks they’ve replaced. The raw data, for those who enjoy this information, is available here on the MTA’s website.

http://theyankeeu.com Matt Imbrogno

Could the direct Metro North stop at YSIII have contributed to this drop in subway traffic? It makes sense, no?
- http://www.secondavenuesagas.com Benjamin Kabak
  
  Some of it, yes. If we assume an average of 3000 per game via Metro-North — which isn’t too far off — then that would be an addition 200,000+ on public transit. But only some of those are people going back to Manhattan on what otherwise would have been the subway. I think the drop is bad economy leading to fewer jobs in the area + smaller capacity at the stadium.
  - http://twitter.com/JoeRo23 The Honorable Congressman Mondesi
    
    I’m sure this isn’t a large effect, but it could also be, at least in small part, a result of a demographic shift in the game-attending fan base.
    - x
      
      well i used to take metro north to grand central then 4 to YS. Now i just take metro north and i assume A LOT of people now do this too.
Andy in Sunny Daytona

So percentage wise, per game, they both went up. Right?
- http://www.secondavenuesagas.com Benjamin Kabak
  
  Nope. They both went down.
  - Andy in Sunny Daytona
    
    Percentage/capacity wise, I mean.
    - http://www.secondavenuesagas.com Benjamin Kabak
      
      Oh, yes. It did. The decline in riders taking the subway weren’t nearly as steep as the declines in overall stadium capacity.
      - Andy in Sunny Daytona
        
        Fun with statistics.
    - Andy in Sunny Daytona
      
      Nervermind. My thinking is disjointed, I think.
chriskeo

If you do the math with the subway, its about a 2050 person drop per game at yankee stadium, there are a lot of factors that could play into that, stadium size being one of them.
- Templeton “Brendog” Peck
  
  all those empty seats!!! nah, that couldn’t have had anything to do with it though because everyone who sat there was brought there by their driver in the back of a bentley
Kyle

The people who can afford to attend a ballgame these day wouldn’t be caught dead on a Subway! So beneath them!!!!
http://mystiqueandaura.com/ pete

Oh, Ben Kabak, you and your crazy transit obsessions