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Transit Tangents
The Podcast where we discuss all things transit. Join us as we dive into transit systems across the US, bring you interviews with experts and advocates, and engage in some fun and exciting challenges along the way.
Transit Tangents
2026 FIFA World Cup Cities, Ranked By Transit
Choosing your World Cup city could be the difference between a breezy, car-free celebration and a stressful shuttle hunt. We break down all 16 host cities across the United States, Canada, and Mexico with one goal in mind: how easily can a traveler get from the airport to the stadium and still enjoy the city’s best neighborhoods, food, and culture without relying on a car. Our criteria are simple and traveler-focused—airport rail links, direct stadium access, real-world frequency, and the broader web of connections that let you explore beyond the match.
Planning your trip? Use this guide to pick the city that matches your style—walkable, rail-first weekends or ambitious multi-city itineraries. If you enjoyed this breakdown, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review telling us which city you’re choosing and why.
The World Cup is just around the corner, and this summer, 2026, the host countries are going to be the United States, Canada, and Mexico sharing the stage together where countries from around the world are going to come and play soccer. And not only that, people from all around the world are going to come to visit the cities that the games are being hosted in. There are 16 different cities across North America where these games are going to be held. And you're going to have a variety of different experiences from a public transportation point of view, depending on which city you end up in. And I think that's a bit of an understatement that it's going to be a wide variety, but yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I think any any European or non-American friends uh temper your expectations on our uh public transit offerings.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And so today we're basically going to rank these 16 cities. Uh, there are definitely going to be folks who disagree with our rankings, so feel free to let us know in the comments which ones you agree with and which ones you don't. We're trying to do this from the perspective, not necessarily of which city's public transportation system is the best, but from the perspective of I'm going to be going to one of these games and maybe visiting the city for a couple days to hit some of the things that any tourist visiting a city may do.
SPEAKER_03:So the things that we are going to be looking at are connections to the airport and connections to the stadiums, as well as the larger sort of watershed of connectivity around the city that will kind of funnel you between these two locations and some fun places in between.
SPEAKER_02:Starting off, sadly, with the city that we love on the list in last place in number 16 is the city of Kansas City. The games in Kansas City are going to be played at Arrowhead Stadium. That is where the Kansas City Chiefs play. Unfortunately for Kansas City, it neither has rail access to the airport nor to the stadium. The airport does have a bus, which yours truly actually took from the airport into Kansas City when Chris and I were there to film Kansas City in a day using only public transit. It is possible. That bus is not ideal to say the least. It took me over about an hour and we winded through some all sorts of places along the way.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And unfortunately, the Kansas City, Kansas City streetcar that we love to talk about uh doesn't quite go to the stadium. So uh you do have some uh limited connectivity there. What they are doing is they're setting up sort of temporary uh a temporary bus network that will shuttle you from multiple places around the city to the stadium. So they are setting up, you know, this this this temporary transit system to help with the inflow of people. But you know, something we talked about before we started filming today was if you're setting up a temporary system, how reliable is it going to be if it's not sort of tried, true, and tested? And there's a lot of questions in the air about this one.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, all in all, I think fans will have a good time visiting Kansas City. Downtown's great. Like you said, the streetcar will be nice to be able to ride between the plaza area as well as the river market area and places in between, but overall, not ideal from the perspective of needing to pop up and build these whole new temporary transit systems just to be able to host the event.
SPEAKER_03:But while you're there, we do encourage you to get out and see the city because it is a very, very cool American city. Moving on in our list, we are going to go to number 15, which is Dallas. But in reality, this is Arlington, Texas, at ATT Stadium where the Cowboys play. If you have not seen our Arlington in a Day using only public transit video, you should definitely go back and find it somewhere deep deep in the Transit Tangent archives. It's about 15 seconds, which is about all you need to showcase the public transit availability in Arlington.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so Arlington is basically sandwiched between Dallas and Fort Worth. Both Dallas and Fort Worth have halfway decent transit networks. We haven't really talked much about Fort Worth on the show, but Dallas, we've done an entire Dallas in the day using only public transit episode. Uh, and what is nice about Dallas is that it actually does have fairly good connectivity to the airport with both the Orange Line, which is part of Dart, the transit system in Dallas's light rail system, as well as the silver line, which Chris did an entire episode about when he was at the opening for it uh in 2025.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So if you're trying to get from the airport into Dallas to your hotels or into Fort Worth for your hotels, great, easy connections. But when it comes to the stadium, we're looking at a lack of rail, but also a lack of bus connections getting you to ATT Stadium. Uh so for anybody who's coming in from another country, you're coming to Dallas, and this is a massive American city. Don't have really high hopes for the connectivity. Uh, there is going to be uh a system of shuttles that will be available in some cases, but similar to Kansas City, I don't think this is really a tried true true and tested uh, you know, system for the surge of visitors.
SPEAKER_02:And if you are visiting, I mean it is potentially doable to do, you know, without getting in an Uber, but you're gonna have to really do some pre-planning to utilize the rail and bus networks to make that happen. So heading east from Dallas, we're gonna head over to Miami, where the FIFA games will be played at Hard Rock Stadium. In Miami, you do have airport access via rail with the orange line there running every 10 minutes and tri-rail running every 30 to 60 minutes, so less frequency on the tri-rail, but that is more of a kind of regional commuter service, um, whereas the orange line connects you into downtown Miami. So nice to have those options. But as far as being able to get to the stadium goes, uh, this one is not ideal with the stadium being well north of downtown Miami, um, really kind of on the outskirts. You would need to rely on buses to get there if you were going to try to utilize the public transit network, but in reality, this is going to be a lot of folks driving, a lot of Ubers, a lot of shuttles that are set up just for game days and events.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think one uh benefit to Miami is that if you're trying to at least get to that part of Florida and you fly into, let's say, Orlando, because maybe flights are cheaper, you can always take the bright line into Miami. So for regional connectivity and getting to the city, I think you're in good shape. But as Lewis said, you're probably gonna have to take an Uber to the stadium if you're not gonna brave the uh the buses. Next on our list, we are moving south of the border to Monterey, Mexico, to Estadio BBVA. This one's a little lower on our list because there isn't actually a rail connection from the Monterey Airport into the city. Now, once you are in the city, you can get out to the stadium using the yellow line. But once you get to the uh correct station for that line, it's about a 1.4 kilometer walk, or maybe about 20 minutes to actually get to the stadium. Uh so connectivity here, again, may be a little bit of a challenge, but we haven't been to Monterey, Mexico, or at least I haven't. I think Lewis, you've been in the area, but uh I don't really know what the full transit connectivity looks like across the city.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they do have what they call their Metro Ray system, which I think is a fun name, Monterey Metro Ray uh system. So they do have a couple uh rail lines. It seems to be mostly elevated with a couple underground sections as well. Yeah, I mean a 20-minute walk is not ideal. It'll work for some people, and I actually can imagine that a lot of folks will take the Metro Ray to that station. Uh regularly, it has service about every five to eight minutes, which isn't too bad. I would imagine that they'll probably flex that up a bit uh during the World Cup. But definitely interesting to see. Uh as Chris has mentioned too, some of these uh cities from Mexico that we haven't spent as much time on, and another one is coming up next. We're having to do a little bit more educated guessing, so definitely let us know uh in the comments below if you think these should be higher on the list. I already teased that the next one is also from Mexico. So number 12 on our list is uh Guadalajara. The games will be played at Estadio Acron. Rail access from the airport is non-existent, and the airport is pretty far out of the city. Uh it looks like local buses only. To me, it looks like most people coming from the airport are either getting a ride, doing an Uber, something like that, versus relying on local public transit. And then the stadium is also kind of on the outskirts of town, not close to the airport either. So uh on the edge of town, not accessible by rail again. There is a uh decent-looking bus line close by. Uh, Guadalajara is known for having really good BRT. And just purely looking at Street View here, you can see a stop that is a decent walk away that is on one of these BRT lines. But I do think that it would be a bit of a journey to navigate out to the stadium that way. Now, that's not to say that they also won't have shuttles and whatnot set up just like some of the American cities, but overall, not the most ideal setup for an event of its size.
SPEAKER_03:This is definitely a city that we need to focus on in the future. It looks like there's a lot of really cool stuff happening within the city on their transit lines. Right now, they have three light rail lines, so stay tuned. I'm sure we will do uh more of a deep dive into Mexican cities in the future. But next on our list, we are heading back across the border to Texas, where we are going to Houston. And in Houston, the games are gonna be played at the NRG Stadium. We actually visited the stadium or like right out uh on the outside of it when we did our Houston in a day using only public transit video. So please take a look at that. You can basically take the red line from downtown Houston directly to the stadium, and that red line, when we were there, the frequency was insane. I mean, every five minutes, it seemed like or less, there was a train uh coming through that line. So, really high frequencies, really easy connection to downtown, which bumps this up on the list a little bit. The downside to Houston, we have a major U.S. city that is served by two fairly large airports. George Bush International is huge, and then Hobby, which is kind of more of a southwest hub, and neither airport has rail access. So getting from the airports into downtown or finding your hotel may be a little bit more of a challenge. Uh, you may have to rely on the bus network or grab an Uber to get to that hotel.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I haven't used it, but I will say I do know that that uh George Bush has a fairly frequent direct airport bus that takes you basically right into downtown. So that might be a good option for folks. And, you know, Houston, this one might sound intimidating to be able to do using only public transit for your trip. Um, but I I do think that it is, like we have the personal experience there, it is doable with some pre-planning. Uh, you know, maybe you end up in an Uber a couple times, but the access to the stadium really will be nice to have for this event. Moving on, though, to the state of California in Los Angeles, uh, SoFi Stadium is where the FIFA games will be held in LA. Uh, LA, as of recently, now does have rail access to the airport, kinda. The people mover is technically not open yet, so you do have to transfer onto a bus uh to kind of get to the stadium. Um, we recently covered in our end-of-the-year list that unfortunately the people mover does not look like it's gonna be open for the World Cup anymore, which is lame, but um a reality. So you will be able to use the new LAX transit center. Uh, unfortunately, you just will have to get in a bus for it.
SPEAKER_03:As we mentioned on the show in the past, LA has been expanding their public transit system uh by huge leaps and bounds. I'd say they're investing more in public transit than any city in the U.S. right now. And a lot of that has been gearing up for the World Cup and for the Olympics that are gonna be happening like two years later. So if you really want to use public transit to get to the stadium, buses are still gonna be your best option. There is a uh rail line that's gonna come. I can't even say close, but maybe close-ish if you want to go to the rail line and then take a bus. Uh, but it looks like the K-line. So if you are dedicated to rail, there may be an option, but for the most part, you're going to have to take a bus to get to SoFi Stadium. Next up on the list at number nine is Toronto, moving up to BMO Field. And uh Toronto, I actually was a little surprised that it was as low as it is on our list. I mean, Toronto is such a big city, it's a big transit city, it does have a lot going on. When you fly into Toronto, technically Mississauga, you can take the rail from the airport back into downtown. Uh, there are connections from downtown to the stadium. It's all very close together. You can use the Go commuter train just about every 30 minutes. That can definitely help. They they sort of boost that for events to get people to the stadiums. And there's also the trolleys. They're a little small, they run on the street, they will be stuck in some traffic, but there are connections to get you from the central part of the city to this stadium.
SPEAKER_02:Toronto does have a subway system as well. Um, it just doesn't go as many places as you'd want it to go. I do see uh I actually I don't know if you even know this, Chris. My dad lived in Toronto for several years, so I spent like every other weekend in Toronto for a couple years growing up. And uh I spent a decent amount of time riding the the, I forget if they call them trolleys or streetcars there, but riding around on the streetcars and uh even a little bit on the subway. But I know that there's been uh a lot of desire from the kind of public transit advocates and urbanist folks to really put an emphasis on heavy rail. And I know that there was a lot of disappointment with their, I don't know all the details of it, of their latest lit light rail line that just opened and goes painstakingly slow, um, runs at grade, seemingly didn't have any transit priority at opening. I just remember seeing several folks online complaining about it uh as it opened uh towards the end of 2025. So I'd love to get back to Toronto at some point again soon and take a harder look at their uh public transit. I also am a little surprised that it's kind of settled here on the list, but I think it's because the next few coming up just really are set up so well, not only for the airport connection, the stadium connection, but also just navigating everywhere in the city that you might want to go as a tourist for a long weekend or something like that. Next on our list at number eight is the city of Seattle. We have talked quite a bit about Seattle lately with the extension of their federal way light rail that happened earlier in 2025, as well as the soon to open Cross Lake Connection, which will connect the two-line light rail, which connects over into Bellevue to the one line. Um, you do have rail access at the airport with frequencies of about every eight minutes, as well as to the stadium with both the one and the soon to open two line, which will be open in time for FIFA, um, which will actually make the frequencies at the stadium about every four minutes, depending on you know which way you're gonna go on the train.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and that will be really helpful, uh, especially getting people from sort of the downtown area into the stadium. The airport light rail, if you're leaving from the airport to go to downtown, does take about 35 minutes. So it's a little bit on the longer side, although the airport is fairly far from downtown. And the stadium is sort of walkable from the downtown part of Seattle. It's really right where Seattle kind of goes from, you know, nice uh older buildings and high rises to more of an industrial area. But you can walk there if your hotel is in downtown. So you we do encourage that. Um, Seattle's putting a lot of focus in trying to make better rail connection in the entire region. But when we look at the watershed of rail to try to bring people into the stadium, the rail doesn't go quite as many places as you'd really want it to go to make those larger connections. So you're still gonna have to rely pretty heavily on buses if you're not in the downtown area, or maybe if you're staying in one of the cities that sort of surround Seattle. The next on our list is San Francisco, and this one's also kind of funny. But this is another one that sort of surprised me it was gonna be a little lower on the list because San Francisco is also known for being a really good transit city. I mean, this whole region is pretty well connected from buses that connect you to each of the cities to a pretty extensive rail system connecting from San Francisco all the way down to San Jose and Caltrans. But it will require at least one transfer moving from the lines coming out of San Francisco to the San Jose light rail system. So you will have to take at least two different modes to get from San Francisco proper to the stadium.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think that that's like in my head what penalizes it a little bit because a lot of the stadiums coming up are either right in downtown or it's a direct access to downtown. Um, so uh overall, you know, number seven's not not too bad on the list. Um, the nice thing on this one, too, is also fairly easy access from the Oakland side as well. Uh, you can take the Bart Green or Orange Line and do, again, that transfer onto the San Jose light rail. Next on our list is the city of Boston. And Boston has rail access at the airport with the blue line. You do have to take a short shuttle from the airport to get to the blue line. Um, alternatively, you can also take the silver line from the airport, which honestly is pretty straightforward and a good option. Both Chris and I have taken the silver line, uh, even when we were there to film Boston in a day using only public transit earlier this year. Boston actually sits at number one on our kind of U.S. transit cities list. We have not been to every city yet. So there are, you know, for those of you who are new and haven't seen it, um, we have hit a lot of cities that are not known as transit cities. So that's why Boston sits at number one. Uh you do have uh that rail access to the airport, like I mentioned, but to get to the stadium, it's not as ideal. So the the commuter line from Boston does go out to the stadium. The stadium uh is Gillette Stadium, it's in Foxboro, which is quite a ways out of the downtown area, but it is a direct connection that essentially just runs specific service for events. So you can bet that they are going to line up a ton of trains going both to the game and leaving the game afterwards. I believe they're doing some extensions to the platform to be able to accommodate even more people than normal. But this is a service that they use for uh the Patriots games who play there regularly. Um beyond getting to the game, though, the city does have a pretty robust transit system.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think this is one of the cities that you really won't have to rely on Uber or any type of uh private car service to get to the stadium. You should be able to rely entirely on public transportation, and we'd love to see that. Another city that's going to be very similar to that falls into our fifth place, and that is Philly with the Lincoln Financial Field. We did Philadelphia in a day using only public transit as a previous transit tangents episode where we ranked it somewhere in our top five best transit cities in the US, which should come as no surprise. Once you fly into Philadelphia, getting from the airport to downtown is really easy. You can use the SEPTA regional train, which will run about every 30 minutes into the city center. Once you're in the city center, getting around Philadelphia is super. Easy using either the bus or the rail network. A lot of the rail runs every five to ten minutes. And then for events, you also will see additional trains and additional times. So I think the city is going to be really well set up for transferring passengers wherever they need to go in the city to the stadium.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. There's also pretty good bus service in Philadelphia that we experienced as well. And if you'll remember, we actually talked about how Philly's public transit was potentially in danger of a huge funding cut earlier in 2025. I almost keep saying this year, uh earlier in 2025. And fortunately, the kind of disaster was averted for now. Uh there was a temporary fix put into place, but uh there's now just a new deadline. I want to say it's like in 18 months or something now, they're gonna be in the same position they were in before. Hopefully, before then, a more permanent solution is found. For now, though, Philly is safe as far as public transportation funding goes. Continuing to move on, this one surprised me being as high as it is. We're at the number four slot here, and the number four city is Atlanta. And it's there for a couple reasons. You've got great rail access from the airport with both the gold and red lines going there, which basically gives you every six minute frequencies from the airport. Incredible. Um, you have direct access to the stadium as well on the light rail from both, or is from the rail system on both the blue and the green line. Also every six minutes when you combine both lines that run there. And the stadium is also very walkable to downtown Atlanta, making for just a very seemingly pleasant, walkable, public transit-oriented FIFO weekend for folks, or or a couple days for folks who may be going out to see some of those games.
SPEAKER_03:Not to mention the Atlanta Airport's the busiest airport in the world. So they are well equipped for handling massive amounts of passengers moving through the area. Marta maybe not uh taking quite as many passengers as what the airport's seeing, but as you said, direct connections to downtown. I've taken that train several times, and you know, we've we've sort of slept on uh hot Lanta, but I think we should definitely make a trip and and focus more on more on the city.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:Again, I mean I Atlanta and like top five of any sort of transit list usually don't uh land in the same area for me, but yeah, and while the rail network in Atlanta is not massive, it's gonna take you to very specific areas of the metro. If you don't want to stay in downtown, just make sure that you're planning your hotel or your uh day before the game in those areas where you can grab a quick Marta train back into downtown. You should have plenty of options on some of the uh outer cities that are connected by transit to get back into the main city. Number three on our list, and this may surprise folks because this is our premier transit city in North America, is the New York, New Jersey games, which are going to be held at MetLife Stadium. Can you fly into the area and get directly into the city via rail? For two of the three airports, absolutely. LaGuardia, you still have to use a bus, but for JFK, you can use the JFK Air Train. For uh Newark, which is in New Jersey, you can use the New Jersey transit to get back into the city. And then once you're in the city, it's New York. You can get pretty much anywhere using public transit. Can you get from New York to the stadium? Yes, on game days, there is a game day train, and I'm sure they will have it running multiple times a day to get people from the city out to MetLife Stadium. So why is it ranked number three on our list and not number one? And if you are familiar with the area, you may already know the answer to this, but the stadium isn't really close to the city. It's it's kind of far out.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and to get there, it is accessible by rail, but uh you have to do a transfer at Seacaucus Junction uh on the New Jersey transit trains. So if you're coming from Manhattan, you can get there. The easiest way would be routing from Penn Station to Seacaucus and then transferring in Seacaucus onto that uh game day rail option that takes you right to MetLive Stadium. Um so it will very likely require three different modes of transit for a lot of folks to get there unless you're staying right at Penn Station or uh in New Jersey closer to the stadium. So um obviously in New York, though, and even in New Jersey, it's gonna be very easy to get anywhere you want to go without you know getting in an Uber or anything like that. The public transportation system, as Chris mentioned, is the best in North America that we have. So um, but it is currently at number three on our list, which means there are two left. Number two on the list is going to be Mexico City. The games are gonna be played at Estadio Azteca. Uh, from the airport, you do have rail options with Metro Line 5 running with service every three minutes, which you've you cannot beat that. I mean, you technically can, I guess, but not really. It doesn't, it wouldn't matter to have it any faster than that. You also have great access to the stadium with the city's only light rail line, actually. They have several heavy rail lines. Uh, this is a light rail line with uh peak service running roughly every four minutes, which is also fantastic. My guess is they're gonna try to flex this to even higher during the game. And if I am being honest, there probably will be some concern about the amount of people all getting out and getting onto these vehicles because the light rail vehicles are a little bit smaller than the heavy rail one. Um, but I'd imagine this is something that they're used to dealing with at other events at the stadium in general.
SPEAKER_03:Well, and with that four minute frequencies, especially if it's a little faster, I think that's gonna be you know not too much of a challenge getting people uh in and out of that.
SPEAKER_02:And they'll definitely just line them up, I'd imagine.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And one thing we should note is that the light rail here, it is the real deal. I mean, this is a great light rail. It's grade separated, it has some underground portions, uh, some above streets, many bridges, crossing over, uh, crossings. So this is a really good option. It shouldn't be stuck in traffic. You should just be able to get on and go straight to the stadium. There are also several buses serving the stadium area which run frequently, and they will connect you to the end of the subway, line three at Universidad Station.
SPEAKER_02:For those of you who don't know, Mexico City is home to the second largest subway system in North America, only behind New York City's. Something interesting, 10 of the subway lines are actually rubber-tired vehicles, which I did not know. So that's fairly unique.
SPEAKER_03:And we're talking about the largest metro region in North America. I mean, the city is absolutely enormous, it's well covered with public transit. It's also such a huge soccer football city that they are used to these big surges and crowds for game days. So I think if you want to go to Mexico City for uh the FIFA World Cup, this is a great option for you to get from point A to point B. I think you're gonna have a really good time there. And that leads us to number one on our list, and it may surprise some folks. Number one is Vancouver, British Columbia at BC Place Stadium. Flying into Vancouver and then getting into the city is super easy. There is a rail connection, you can use the Canada line that runs at about four minute frequencies at peak. And then once you are in Vancouver, the city is pretty dense and highly walkable. But if you really want to take a train line to the stadium, you can take the Expo line, which runs every two to four minutes at uh peak. So you're gonna have a lot of options to be able to take the train to get into the stadium, or if you just want to stretch your legs, it is such a beautiful city to just get out and walk from your hotel to that stadium.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I mean this is at number one, and some people will probably disagree. That's totally fine. But I think it's just for the type of trip that you might be doing to go to one of these games and experience the game and be able to like have the atmosphere and the culture, all of everything like happening right at the stadium. Everyone will be walking there, everyone will be taking transit there, no one will be driving. It will feel how these things should feel, in my opinion. Uh, you're gonna be able to go and visit the other parts of Vancouver. Are you gonna be able to get everywhere only on a train? No, but you'll be able to get anywhere you might want to go for a short couple day visit. Um, if you venture onto a bus or something like that, you can get even further. I just think that this setup is going to foster a really cool environment for the games.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Beautiful city, beautiful transit network. It's going to be a great experience, and that's why it is number one on our list. So let us know if you agree with that list. Uh, maybe you would order these a little differently. If you are going to any of the World Cup games, we'd also love to hear about what city you chose to go watch the games and why you chose that city. And yeah, just uh leave us a comment, let us know what you think about this list. We are really excited to see how the public transit landscape sort of uh falls into place during these games.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. And if you want to support the show, the best ways to do so are via our Patreon, buy us a coffee, or checking out the merch store down below. You can also just like the video, subscribe, or send it to a friend. Those all help us out quite a bit. But with all that being said, thank you all so much for watching and enjoy the rest of your transit.
SPEAKER_03:FIFA. Yeah, okay.