LA Uses World Cup to Show Off Upgraded Public Transit and Test Plans to Hold Car-Free Olympics
City data show pedestrian trips near Toronto Stadium rose as much as 140% and expressway traffic fell 10% to 30% on match days.
- Data from the city, TTC, and Bike Share shows Toronto residents increasingly used walking, cycling, and transit during the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
- Routes servicing the FIFA Fan Fest, including King, Bathurst, and Dufferin, saw over 200,000 trips on the June 12 opening match day, compared to just over 137,000 trips last year.
- Pedestrian activity around Toronto Stadium increased 130 per cent on the first match day and 70 per cent during the June 17 game, while expressway traffic volumes fell between 10 and 30 per cent.
- Beyond traditional transit modes, Bike Share usage climbed between June 12 and July 2, with valet locations at Toronto Stadium handling around 2,000 rides on every match day.
- Michael Longfield, executive director of Cycle Toronto, urged officials to make these multi-modal successes a "new normal" for the city, stating the results demonstrate its capability to accommodate big events.
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Earlier this month, when Matthew Smith took his 5-year-old son to a World Cup match in the Los Angeles area, he chose to take public transportation instead of driving from his nearby coastal city.
L.A.’s Mega-Event Era Is Here
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How public transit connects the World Cup host cities
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is being hosted across 16 different cities in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. The city hosting the most games is Dallas, with 9 matches. Supposedly, this is because the city has a nice stadium with a retractable roof and capacity for 70,649 people, and Dallas is a fairly central location for a tournament being hosted across North America. But here's another way of looking at the stadiums. The School of Cities at th…
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