In New York City, the MTA has stated that it’s seen “ridership tick down a bit in the last week or so.” For anyone who lives there, it probably feels like more than a bit of a tick down, with subway platforms empty at rush hour and the usually bustling Grand Central terminal eerily quiet.

In order to visualize what is happening at one of the busiest train terminals in the world, we looked at year-over-year foot traffic numbers at Grand Central to see just how much visitors numbers have fallen in the past few weeks.

The blue line on the chart below shows average daily foot traffic since January 2019, with the orange bar showing the year over year change in average daily traffic by month.

As it clearly shows, traffic in February declined from January but was up year-over-year. Whereas we see in March a dramatic year-over-year drop.

This is no doubt due, in part, to many more people working from home over the past couple of weeks. And is likely compounded by a drastic fall in visitor numbers from overseas during the usually busy school holiday period.

Advan will continue to track foot traffic numbers at key locations as the full impact of the COVID-19 virus unfolds.