This summer, 48 nations competed on the pitch. Off it, American cities faced a quieter but equally revealing test: how well they move people when the world is watching.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup put 16 host cities under a transportation microscope unlike anything the U.S. has seen since the Atlanta Olympics three decades ago. The results were varied. Some cities had the infrastructure and planning know-how to handle the crowds well, while others struggled to respond to the task, publicly exposing known and unknown gaps. All of them, however, generated data and hard-won operational insight that will shape how America hosts major events for the next generation, starting with the LA28 Olympics, two years away. Across the country there are learnings that can inform LA28 and the events to come:
When Japan played the Netherlands in Arlington, Texas, thousands of Japanese fans rode Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) to get there. Japan has one of the most sophisticated passenger rail systems in the world. What those fans said on social media afterward became a minor news story, and a moment for introspection.
Fans noticed that Texans "park and ride" while Japanese fans "walk and ride." Many American transit systems were designed around the car as the first leg of the journey, a legacy that shapes how visitors experience them. For event planners, that means designing first and last-mile connections for visitors without a personal vehicle. They also flagged access friction points that are common across American transit systems. Fans were pleasantly surprised to learn that DART's fleet was manufactured by Osaka-based Kinki Sharyo, a familiar name for many more than halfway around the world.
Hosting a global audience means being benchmarked against the world’s best transit systems. Visitors from Tokyo, Amsterdam, or Seoul arrive with specific expectations around wayfinding, fare access, and station design. Preparing for that range of expectations before the event is less expensive than recovering from the perception gap after it.
With the 2028 Olympics two years away and a commitment to a “no car” Games, no city had more to prove this summer than Los Angeles. By most measures, it delivered, and what it built in the process matters as much as how the matches went.
LA’s World Cup performance wasn’t built on any single decision. For the Spain-Austria match on July 2, nearly 50,000 riders boarded LA Metro rail lines. LA Metro also prepared for the moment by adding 15 shuttle routes to move fans from major stations to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, on which more than 30,000 riders relied for just that single game. The agency also upgraded its payment infrastructure before the tournament, allowing riders to tap directly with a credit card. Fan zones at major transit hubs drew thousands of people who had never used the system before. Each change was modest on its own. Together, they moved a city that has historically struggled to easily do so.
First-time riders described the experience as better than expected. For a system that has long struggled with perception as much as performance, that kind of unsolicited praise matters. Los Angeles is a car-first city by design, where public transit has historically been the option for people without another choice. Getting those riders on the trains at all was the win. When Metro turned its rail stations into FIFA fan zones, a smart use of existing assets, they put the system in front of thousands of people who would not have sought it out otherwise. Converting that first-time ridership into habit is the longer game.
The World Cup was proof of concept. Metro borrowed roughly 200 buses for eight World Cup games. Officials estimate they will need 3,000 for the Olympics, across more venues, more days, and with no parking anywhere in the mix. The D Line extension, which opened in June 2026 and will eventually reach UCLA's official Athlete Village, shows the infrastructure investment is continuing. What LA built this summer works. The question is whether it can be multiplied by fifteen.
For New Jersey, the World Cup was an opportunity to demonstrate how much the region's transit operation has matured. The 2014 Super Bowl at MetLife Stadium exposed capacity limits, with thousands of fans stranded on platforms in the cold, and NJ Transit had spent the years since building toward a different outcome.
In what can only be described as a redemption arc, NJ Transit moved fans to and from seven World Cup matches at MetLife Stadium without a major incident, cleared the stadium in 60 to 80 minutes on average after each game, and averaged 35–45-minute door-to-door trips from New York Penn Station to the stadium. NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri described the operation as "doing logistics for seven Super Bowls."
That consistency wasn't accidental. NJ Transit managed demand deliberately, keeping trains running without overcrowding across all seven matches.
But some may say that the final match on July 19 was the hardest test, complicated by the presence of world leaders including President Trump and the heightened security that came with it. With more pressure than any of the preceding six matches, NJ Transit delivered without incident.
Taken together, the New York-New Jersey region gave the country something more valuable than a transit success story: a case study in how agencies with complicated histories show up and execute.
The U.S. Department of Transportation invested $100.3 million through the Federal Transit Administration specifically to help host cities prepare for the World Cup: planning, capital improvements, and operating costs. FIFA also required each host city to submit a formal Mobility Plan, a multimodal coordination document balancing transit access, accessibility, and sustainability.
That combination of federal funding and an international governance requirement forced something American cities rarely achieve on their own: genuine cross-agency coordination. Transit authorities, police departments, emergency services, city transportation offices, and federal agencies had to operate from shared plans, shared data, and shared accountability. Most cities don't reach that level of integration without external pressure to force it.
The real question is whether any of that infrastructure survives. The Mobility Plans, the interagency protocols, the real-time data systems agencies stood up to manage crowd flows and security across 16 cities simultaneously have value well beyond the tournament. Agencies that treat them as permanent assets are better positioned for LA28. Agencies that file them away when the matches end will start over in two years, under a much tighter timeline, on a much larger scale.
The 2028 Olympics is expected to draw more than 11 million visitors across the Los Angeles region (nearly twice the World Cup's attendance). The coordination muscle built this summer is the foundation for what comes next.
The event is the forcing function: use it to build, not just to execute.
Major events create political will and funding conditions that normal budget cycles rarely produce. The agencies that came out ahead used the World Cup to establish coordination protocols, invest in data infrastructure, and update payment systems.
Perception is part of the product, and the world is watching.
What people experience shapes what they believe about a city, an agency, and a country. This summer demonstrated that across every host city: fans from high-performing transit systems noticed what worked and what didn’t, first-time riders formed lasting impressions, and agencies with complicated histories either reinforced or rewrote their reputations. For LA28, investment in safety, wayfinding, and rider experience is the reputational argument.
The gap between World Cup and Olympics is a planning window. Treat it as one.
The coordination model that worked this summer needs to scale across more agencies, more venues, more athletes, and more visitors, with no warm-up. The agencies best positioned for LA28 are the ones treating the World Cup as version one of a longer program, not the finish line.
LA28 is the next major test. The Summer of Sport showed a preview of what American public transit can do when the pressure is on. The harder question is what it does when the cameras are gone.
North Highland works with transportation agencies and public sector organizations on large-scale operational change, workforce planning, and program delivery. Contact us to discuss how your agency can prepare for LA28 and future mega-events.