FIFA plan passed by Toronto Council

“I don’t know,” says Behrouz Khamseh. “I am not sure these staff people know what they are talking about…the numbers they are giving, I don’t think they can make this work.”

Khamseh has attended and spoken at several meetings at which Toronto staff and community groups including the Downtown BIAs have worked to develop a traffic plan for the World Cup games in June, 2026.

Toronto City Council approved an amended FIFA plan at its April 22nd meeting, increasing the City Manager’s budget for the games from $71. million to $9 million.

Khamseh notes that because the World Cup soccer games will generally end around 10pm, Toronto is unlikely to see the kind of unplanned chaos it experieced during last year’s World Series, when one game ended so late that transit riders were stuck with no way home. He had hoped the City would set aside more staging areas for Vehicles for Hire, Taxi stands or corals.

“The FIFA games will end earlier, so TTC will still be running. But staff are planning to have 50,000 to 60,000 people walk from Allan Lamport Stadium to Liberty Village to get a Taxi or an Uber. People will be drunk, there will be families with strollers….I don’t see how it’s going to work.

“We’ll see, I guess.”