Millennials fuel Metro-North ridership surge

• Experts say young adults delay getting driver's licenses because they can't afford a car.
• Metro-North is providing more tech services like Wifi in tunnels, mobile ticketing and phone apps.
• The railroad is looking to attract train-loving millennials who move to suburbs to raise kids.

Late on a Saturday afternoon at the White Plains train station, the grim, workaday faces of the daily commuter have given way to 20-somethings sporting embroidered backpacks, earbuds and skinny jeans.

No briefcases are in sight, only plastic shopping bags hiding a few craft beers.

Among them is Nick Rieder, 27, of White Plains. During the week, the Minnesota native drives north to his job in a corporate office park in Westchester County. On the weekends, he leaves the car home.

“We’re just going to Harlem, 125th Street,” Rieder said. “And then we’re going to meet a buddy for a birthday party in the city. That’s the plan.”

It’s a scene repeated at Metro-North stations across the Lower Hudson Valley every weekend as a flood of millennials take over the rails. Metro-North officials say their growing presence fueled the commuter rail's record surge to 86.1 million riders last year.

Hard numbers of millennials who ride the rails are hard to come by, but Michael Shiffer, Metro-North's vice president for planning, sees evidence of the trend in the faces on the train he takes home every night through Westchester.

“When I ride home, I don’t see a lot of millennials on the train,” Shiffer said. “They’re there, but they’re not as visible. But when I look at the platform of people going inbound you see them. They’re the folks who want to go in at 7 or 8 at night. And that’s where they tend to be more visible.”

An analysis of 2015 ridership numbers hint at the increase. Metro-North’s non-commutation ridership — those who take the train for something other than work — grew by 2.4 percent, or some 856,000 trips on lines east and west of the Hudson River in 2015, officials say. Commuter ridership, meanwhile, rose 1 percent.

“Much of our growth has been in the off-peak market,” Shiffer said, referring to the non-rush hour period. “It’s the travel on the weekends and the evenings.”

​Metro-North surveys appear to bear out the trend. On the weekends, those 35 or older will take the train half the time, while millennials take the train 75 percent of the time, Shiffer said.

Plummeting gas prices

The last time Metro-North witnessed such a ridership surge was in 2008 when gas prices were high. But, with gas prices leveling off, the ridership numbers have continued to tick upward at a time when many younger people are forsaking their car for the train.

“We are seeing the confluence of a strengthening regional economy, healthier downtowns around the region, a new generation of millennials who value public transportation, and greater productivity on board our trains through the proliferation of smartphones, tablets and laptops,” Metropolital Transportation Authority President Thomas Prendergast said last week.

Millennials say it's not just time spent on their smartphone or listening to music that's got them riding trains. For many, it's the cheapest way to travel.

Jadean Norman, 20, a junior accounting major at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, takes the train into Grand Central Terminal three times a week for her part-time job at a midtown bank. She pays $260 for a monthly pass.

“It’s just overall a better experience than all the stress of driving, not to mention a lot of people my age can’t afford a car,” she said one night this week while taking the train into the city.

Given a choice, Norman said she’d rather be in her car.

“I think that there are pros and cons to both,” she added. “I do like being able to get work done on the train but, other than that, really, I would prefer my car because you’re in your own private space, you don’t have to deal with loud people and you can listen to music.”

Ezar Merengueli, 31, was at the White Plains station Saturday on his way to see his family in Mount Kisco. He, too, said he rather be in a car.

“I’m working hard on getting one,” he said.

No money for a car

Norman and Merengueli are not alone among young people who cite economic factors for why they've turned to public transportation.

More millennials are living with their families despite an improved labor market, a PewResearch Center study concluded last year.

“In fact, the nation’s 18- to 34-year-olds are less likely to be living independently of their families and establishing their own households today than they were in the depths of the Great Recession,” the study found.

The findings dovetail with surveys by the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, which show that fewer people between the ages of 20 and 24 are getting their driver’s licenses than in years past.

Millenials surveyed cite a host of reasons for putting off what, for many a suburban teen, has long been a rite of passage. Too busy, cars are too expensive, they prefer to take a bike or walk, they can get rides from others, and they prefer public transportation were the top five reasons cited.

But, according to Brandon Schoettle, who co-authored the study with Michael Sivak, it could be that some young people can’t afford a car or don’t have the money to pay for parking in a city.

“Public transportation is often the only alternative that they have,” said Schoettle. “It’s usually their only backdrop. As you get older, and generally more financially stable, there’s a little less of a desire to use buses and trains."

To capture this young market, Metro-North has been working to provide the sort of technological upgrades favored by millennials. That includes Wifi service in tunnels, mobile ticketing and more phone apps.

Capturing the young market 

And, in recent years, they’ve added more trains on weekends and evenings, service that not all commuter rails are able to provide.

“One of the ways we’ve gotten there is running service on a consistent, predictable level, half-hourly service, where you look at the clocks and you know the train comes at 5 minutes past the hour,” said Shiffer. “That clock-face predictability really lends itself to the millennial travel pattern, to be able to come and go as they please.”

In the years to come, Shiffer said, Metro-North will have an eye on capturing these train-loving millennials as they abandon New York City for a place in the suburbs. Several so-called transit-oriented developments have already sprouted up in New Rochelle, Yonkers and White Plains, catering to the young as well as empty-nesters.

“One of the things we need to be cognizant of is they’re going to have kids,” Shiffer said. “Because they got used to that lifestyle, they might be looking for walkable options for high-quality transit and they may look for that in the suburbs.”

A former college professor, Shiffer made a habit of inquiring about his students' travel habits, a curiosity he's applied to his job at Metro-North. Like them, he prefers to use his smartphone to check train schedules and click on apps.

"I feel like a millennial at heart," he said.