World Cup Transit Is Broken Before It Has Begun

On Tuesday, the Athletic reported that NJ Transit plans on hiking up the price of return tickets to New York Penn Station from World Cup games at the New York New Jersey stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., to more than $100, an approximately eight-fold increase from the ordinary ticket price of $12.90. This report comes approximately a week after the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) officially announced prices for its services to Boston-area World Cup games: $80 for round-trip express train tickets and $95 for round-trip tickets on a new direct shuttle bus service to Foxboro. These are plainly extortionate prices. The habit in the United States is to heap blame onto public transit agencies, which, with few exceptions, have poor funding and even worse public relations, but in this case it is not NJ Transit or MBTA doing the extorting, even as they are the agencies levying these prices. The local governing bodies hosting World Cup games are in a bind: Despite nebulous declarations from FIFA president Gianni Infantino that the World Cup would inject something like $30 billion into the U.S. economy, the hosting cities themselves do not benefit from the direct revenue of World Cup ticket or concessions sales, broadcasts, or even official parking fees. All of the above go to FIFA. Nevertheless, FIFA and the federal government have broadly shunted responsibility onto local governments for providing transportation in accordance with FIFA's strict security requirements. The Federal Transit Administration will provide roughly $100 million in funding for improving transportation for the 11 U.S. World Cup host cities, but according to the Athletic's report, providing service would cost NJ Transit alone as much as $48 million.