Phillies fans say it’s suddenly ‘impossible’ to get an Uber from Citizens Bank Park

When I invited my dad to a Father’s Day Phillies game, I told him getting an Uber home to the western suburbs would be easy.

I had taken Ubers in previous seasons and, aside from paying surge prices, I never had an issue.

As we stood in Citizens Bank Park’s Uber pickup lot after the game, I realized I was mistaken.

Two dozen drivers accepted his ride requests then canceled, despite the app indicating they were somewhere in the sea of cars in front of us. Others nearby said they were experiencing the same. When asked about the issue, a lot attendant shrugged.

My dad eventually decided to take the Broad Street Line to SEPTA’s Regional Rail, barely catching a train that runs once every hour on Sundays (and may soon stop running altogether).

I thought we had just gotten unlucky — until I came across posts on Facebook and TikTok indicating that this has become a common experience.

The Uber RideShare lot opened in Citizens Bank Park’s Lot T in April 2023. It was touted as a convenient place to hail rides after events at the ballpark and the Wells Fargo Center.

But several regular game attendees and concertgoers said it’s only become more difficult and they no longer depend on the service.

Most fans who spoke to The Inquirer said they had only tried Uber, the most popular rideshare app and the one that sponsors the lot. Some said they occasionally had better luck with Lyft.

“This season is worse than the others,” said Alyssa Mayfield, 27, of South Philadelphia, who goes to Phillies games every few weeks. “Last year, I did get Ubers back home and I was fine. I don’t really know what’s changed.”

She has attended a handful of games so far this season, she said, and has not successfully Ubered home from any of them, despite often trying.

Because drivers work as independent contractors, Uber cannot control whether they reject or accept rides, a company spokesperson said.

“Having said that, we want to make sure our riders have a seamless experience,” spokesperson Freddi Goldstein said in a statement. “We continue to look at ways to improve access to the lot and increase earning opportunities for drivers who chose to pick up at the stadium.”

Goldstein said Uber is working with the Phillies on “joint solutions.”

The Uber situation at the stadium complex has affected suburbanites who are requesting longer, more expensive rides, as well as city residents who don’t want to walk or take public transit.

When Liz Gyuris, 26, of Fishtown, left a Friday night Phillies game earlier this month, she and her boyfriend thought they’d attempt to grab an Uber.

Gyuris said she tried to move her pickup point to Xfinity Live! or the Live! Casino, where she had hailed Ubers in the past, but the app only allowed her to select Lot T. It was “a strange experience,” she said. In the app, drivers repeatedly canceled on the couple. When Gyuris and her boyfriend approached a group of drivers milling about in the lot, the pair were ignored.

She posted a video about her experience on TikTok, and received dozens of comments.

“Other people were pretty unsatisfied with the system,” said Gyuris, who works in marketing.

She plans to take the subway to and from future games, but she worries people from the suburbs could get stuck, especially when there are multiple events at the stadiums.

“People can’t get rides,” Gyuris said.

Several Philly sports fans and concertgoers said they’ve run into issues at other venues. Some have found workarounds.

Angela Pierson, a 40-year-old nurse from the Far Northeast, said she has started driving to the stadium more often, parking at Live! Casino.

Allison Zborowski, 34, an executive assistant who recently moved from Aldan to Delaware, said she’s become more selective about events, because she knows she’ll have to wait for at least an hour to get an Uber home. For day games, she said, her dad — “a saint” — often offers to pick her up.

Kristen Scalise, 36, an account director from Port Richmond, is “a major SEPTA supporter,” and will usually take the bus and Broad Street Line to and from Phillies games, which she attends monthly. But last time, she and her spouse waited 45 minutes for a bus that didn’t show up after a night game. In the future, she said, she’ll likely take the subway to Girard and then Uber the rest of the way home.

Mayfield, of South Philadelphia, said she doesn’t feel safe taking SEPTA alone at night. After one Phillies game, she walked half a mile to Stella Maris Catholic Church, but Uber drivers were still canceling on her. She called her husband to pick her up.

“I try to avoid doing that, because then it has him trying to find [street] parking at night,” once they get back home, said Mayfield, a physical therapy aide. “It’s just a mess.”

Arianna Flynn, 27, of Northern Liberties, goes down to the stadium complex a couple times a month.

In previous years, hailing a ride “was bad but it wasn’t impossible,” said Flynn, who works in healthcare marketing. “I have friends who are like, ‘It’s so hard to get out of there that I don’t want to go.’”

She’s considered jumping in a taxi or other car parked on Pattison, where drivers sometimes hawk their services. But they can overcharge, she said, and she feels less safe.

Flynn doesn’t feel comfortable taking the subway alone at night and walking the rest of the way home. But she’s left with few other options.

Sometimes, she said, she rides the Broad Street Line a few stops north and tries to get an Uber from there. But even that is not a guarantee.

Hanging over all of these non-Uber options for getting home from the stadiums: Public transit may become even more limited.

“If the SEPTA budget cuts go into effect, and the frequency of public transit goes down,” Flynn said, “that could make the issue worse.”