Several years ago, when the Yankees proposed to build a new stadium in the Bronx, advocates campaigned against the parking garages that were planned to go with it. The facilities, they reasoned, were unnecessary, since fans had long been able to get to Yankees games without the 75% increase in parking capacity that the lots would bring. A coalition of advocates argued that it would be better to invest in transit and save the parkland on which the garages were to be constructed, but the facilities were built nonetheless (partially with taxpayer money). In a victory for sustainable transportation advocates, though, the city pitched in to help the MTA build a new Metro-North station within walking distance of the stadium.
Now, three years after the stadium’s construction, the owners of the parking facilities have told the Securities and Exchange Commission that they will likely default on the tax-free bonds that financed the project. Why? Nobody’s parking there. NBC recently visited a garage near Yankee Stadium midway through the team’s home opener and found that three of its four floors were empty, and last year, the company’s lots were 43% full on the average gameday.
And that Metro-North station? It’s booming. By all accounts, people love the service, and on the same day that NBC found the empty parking lot, the MTA announced that its Yankee Stadium stop had broken the record for the highest weekday ridership at the station during a regular season game. Over 5,100 people arrived at the game by commuter rail—that amounts to about 1 in 10 fans. Metro-North isn’t the only way for people to get to Yankees games by transit, either: over 8.6 million people swiped their MetroCards at the 161st St-Yankee Stadium subway station in 2011. This 2.3% increase in subway ridership over 2009’s figures (the year when the Metro-North station opened) is particularly impressive because the commuter rail presumably drew away some of its straphangers.
As similar projects in New York City move forward, the city and state should heed the lessons of Yankee Stadium. Instead of subsidizing parking with $100 million aid packages and hundreds of millions in tax-free bond financing, they should prioritize funding for transit projects, like the $39 million contribution that helped the MTA build its new Metro-North station. There is only so much money; it should be spent wisely.
For the most part, the only people who NEED parking spaces are from NJ and Long Island. Long Islanders have no mass transit solution due to the lack of a viable LIRR connection. There also need to be plenty of handicap access spaces.
Before the House Built By Ruth was destroyed, there were issues of insufficient parking, especially rip-off free parking. BUT the Metro North station was built, and that cut down demand. And the extremely high prices charged for parking, and the high expense of even semi decent tickets, let alone food, have made it impractical for many from Long Island to go to the new stadium. Even when I had a good job we couldn’t afford it.
These garages, as I recall, seemed to cost far more to build then they should have. There seem to be some big questions as to where all the money went. But now, they are huge monuments to greed and incompetence!
[…] the transit stations near Yankee Stadium have been an enormous success. A Metro-North station that was added to the stadium area—in no small part due to local […]
[…] subway station is up 5 percent since 2009 and Metro-North ridership now accounts for approximately one in 10 fans arriving at Yankee Stadium via the stadium’s new Metro-North […]
[…] More than 5,000 fans travel to Yankee Stadium by Metro North Train on a game day. Opened during the 2009 baseball season, the Yankees-E. 153rd Street Station has so reduced car traffic to the Yankees Heritage Field complex that the extensive parking facilities built for the new stadium “will likely default on the tax-free bonds that financed the project,” according to the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. […]