Not a single minute of this summer’s FIFA World Cup will be played on New York City soil, yet the Big Apple is looking to do everything possible to take advantage of the extra visitors in town who will travel across the Hudson to see the matches in New Jersey.
Since March, the city’s Department of Transportation has announced no fewer than three separate street redesign projects in Manhattan, all aimed at increasing available pedestrian and bicycling space on major roadways such as 9th Avenue on the West Side, Lafayette Street and 4th Avenue through the Village, and the Manhattan entrance ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge.
The installations should help improve the flow of foot and bicycle traffic around Manhattan amid the influx of visitors in town for the World Cup this summer.
Soccer fans, however, will need to rely upon rail service between Penn Station and the Meadowlands to reach the matches at MetLife Stadium — but that will come with a big cost that the fans will bear.
NJ Transit, the only rail service between Penn Station and the Meadowlands, announced that its trips to and from the stadium during the World Cup will cost fans more than $100 round trip. Typically, a round-trip ticket there costs just $12.90.
Why the massive markup? The agency says it will cost an additional $48 million to ramp up train service between the city and the Meadowlands during the tournament, carrying about 40,000 fans each match. Yet FIFA, which is expected to reap $11 billion on this summer’s tournament, has kicked the increased transportation costs to the states hosting the matches, according to New York Sen. Chuck Schumer.
Ticket prices for attending World Cup matches at MetLife Stadium are already exorbitant; SeatGeek has seats for an opening-round Brazil-Morocco match at the Meadowlands going for no less than $1,700 a pop.
No doubt, the fans coming to New York to see the World Cup will be spending plenty of money here. However, they will be spending far less of it on local restaurants, theaters and other businesses if they have to dig deeper to either pay to take NJ Transit or rent a car and park at the Meadowlands, where limited parking spaces are available at a cost of $220 per vehicle.
New York and New Jersey wanted the World Cup matches here to help spur the economy through increased tourism. But what’s the point of hosting such big-ticket events and moving heaven and earth to improve infrastructure if FIFA won’t pay for it?
The $48 million NJ Transit is spending represents just 0.0043% of the $11 billion FIFA is expected to reap from the six-week World Cup tournament across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The millions New York City is spending to improve bike and pedestrian lanes represent an even smaller fraction of that massive amount.
Come on, FIFA. Don’t leave New York and New Jersey, and soccer fans visiting us this summer, holding the ball. Do the right thing and cover the transit costs.
