World Cup 2026 at Arrowhead?

[AlkaliAxel]

So if the Royals parade shows our usefulness without rail…then please tell me the city is smart enough to pick up on that and market that aspect to FIFA?

[normalthings]

So if the Royals parade shows our usefulness without rail…then please tell me the city is smart enough to pick up on that and market that aspect to FIFA?

The entire transportation system ground to a halt…… Absolutely not something we want to advertise.

[normalthings]

Would have liked to see a full house at the Gold Cup game tonight. I hope it doesn't speak uncorrectly about this cities soccer passion.

Looked almost empty.

[AlkaliAxel]

Didn't we just kill it with TV ratings recently with some soccer match?

USMNT friendly vs. Mexico last week had KC as the 3rd highest market. They should lean with that. Although I'm pretty shocked we didn't show up for the Gold Cup.

[flyingember]

So if the Royals parade shows our usefulness without rail…then please tell me the city is smart enough to pick up on that and market that aspect to FIFA?

The entire transportation system ground to a halt…… Absolutely not something we want to advertise.

It fell apart at 40x the numbers of a game….

Now, if we were hosting 20+ simultaneous games in our 20 stadiums I might be worried.

The idea is that a distributed bus shuttle network is far more valuable for such an event.

[kboish]

Would have liked to see a full house at the Gold Cup game tonight. I hope it doesn't speak uncorrectly about this cities soccer passion.

Looked almost empty.

About 12k was announced attendance. Doesnt surprise me. It was a USMNT B-team against a nobody Haiti. It wasnt an inspiring matchup. The Game itself was also pretty boring.

[TheSmokinPun]

It's the off year Gold Cup, the US let nearly all of the Euro based guys go back to get ready for their season, they beat the Mexico A squad with their A squad, & they deserve a break. CONCACAF also did zero advertising locally but I figure it keeps travel costs & training costs down enough that it evens out with a few games of solid attendance rather than moving around a lot.

Thursday will have so-so people at the game, very small team in Martinique, which isn't even a member of FIFA. Next Sunday is the expected better attended game against Canada. Quite a few people coming in.

[GRID]

Rail transit isn’t that big an advantage as people think.

The finals are being held at a site in New Jersey and requires multiple transfers from NYC to a single line. Clearly they didn’t care about being in a good spot for rail access for the biggest game.

2018 attendance was 47k per game average.

At 170 per vehicle it would take 276 trains loads. At every 5 minute spacing it would take 23 hours to use just rail transit for moving people around. Every two minutes, which I doubt is realistic, is 9 hours.

A good bus shuttle plan will be far more critical. KC handling 800,000 for the Royals parade with the associated citywide bus shuttles is likely far more useful to the host city selection than the amount of rail a city has.

People have got to stop thinking the KC streetcar is some sort of mass transit. It's an urban tram. Nothing more. It's great at what it does. But it's not a "train". An articulated bus can carry as many or more passengers. It just drives me crazy when people talk about running the streetcar to the stadiums, airport etc.

KC just needs to bring in a lot of buses to host a world cup. Hundreds of them that can run direct from all the different hotel districts of the city.

[normalthings]

The KC portion of the United 2026 bid didn’t even mention streetcar. Instead, highways and bussing was our focus. Cincinnati mentioned Amtrak and their streetcar.

IMHO. Streetcar to stadiums is more about building a LRT or Tram line that connects the east side with all the MAX lines into Mainstreet Streetcar, provides a pathway to LRT to the suburbs, and a potential transit center or redevelopment of the stadiums.

Rail to stadiums is a pretty common “idea” that people request in a city or regional rail system. 4 module Urbos 3 AXL’s hold 256 people. Doubled up you can transport over 12,000 per hour with 5 minute headway’s. 31,000 per hour if you use the 2 minute headway’s that TramLink to Wimbledon can hit.

[earthling]

^^Agree it's not particularly going to be effective as a commuter line, there are better modes outside city core for KC's situation. I think of it as more of a horizontal elevator that connects districts, and it's perfect for that function, especially the way the 'feel' of free fare experience works directly integrated into sidewalk. A lot of cities just throw buses at events, including major cities with major transit. I've been to large conventions in San Fran that used buses between venues.

[flyingember]

One thing to think of is what a city doesn't have.

I would put hotel space as KC's weak spot. We know this from Walmart pulling an event when they had people all over town.

One thing in our favor at KCI will be having three runways and a functionally brand new terminal with tons of capacity compared to others on the list and freeways with the space to setup end to end express lanes all over the city. Can send large busses same day from the airport via 435. the inside lane of 435 is nonstop and even becomes the ramp to the stadiums.

Maybe Atlanta looks better for venue reasons, but adding dozens of flights will not be as easy with a good percentage of the country connecting through it to games in other cities and their traffic is horrible.

The big crunch spot in any city is going to be the general aviation airports. There will be huge VIP air travel demand for each city. The president of Croatia attended games in 2018. I'm not sure downtown could handle Air Force One but many countries have 737s in use, and they certainly can fly into MKC. Have them fly in, drop off and fly out to KCI to park seems reasonable. Smaller planes could fly to smaller regional airports to park.

Comparing to Atlanta again, their general aviation airports aren't nearly as close to everything. So for KC, being able to bring a VIP into downtown and take them straight to a downtown hotel within ten minutes has to be a positive.

[GRID]

Buses will work fine and would probably be needed even if KC had Light Rail running down I-70 for event like the world cup.

Honestly building a true light rail line to the east suburbs with a stop the stadiums is the only way to go as far as building rail out that way. Anything else is a waste of money IMO. Either build it right and go with a light rail system or don't do anything at all. Commuter rail nor streetcars make any sense.

[flyingember]

Rail to stadiums is a pretty common “idea” that people request in a city or regional rail system. 4 module Urbos 3 AXL’s hold 256 people. Doubled up you can transport over 12,000 per hour with 5 minute headway’s. 31,000 per hour if you use the 2 minute headway’s that TramLink to Wimbledon can hit.

Your math is off.

Every 5 minutes is 12 trains per hour, one direction.

256 * 12 = 3072 people per hour

2 minutes is 30 trains per hour, for 7680 people per hour

if you were talking about combining four of them connected together you get your 12k or 31k number. The train woiuld be 405 feet long, greater than the length of one E-W city block. That's more than a little silly. Running in the street the trains would be so big they would fill 25% of 31st from Main to Van Brunt at once. It would be incredible to see but that idea is so unrealistic that no one would ever seriously consider it

FYI- there's apparently only like 40 AXLs in use in the entire world

[normalthings]

Rail to stadiums is a pretty common “idea” that people request in a city or regional rail system. 4 module Urbos 3 AXL’s hold 256 people. Doubled up you can transport over 12,000 per hour with 5 minute headway’s. 31,000 per hour if you use the 2 minute headway’s that TramLink to Wimbledon can hit.

Your math is off.

Every 5 minutes is 12 trains per hour, one direction.

256 * 12 = 3072 people per hour

2 minutes is 30 trains per hour, for 7680 people per hour

if you were talking about combining four of them connected together you get your 12k or 31k number. The train woiuld be 405 feet long, greater than the length of one E-W city block. That's more than a little silly. Running in the street the trains would be so big they would fill 25% of 31st from Main to Van Brunt at once. It would be incredible to see but that idea is so unrealistic that no one would ever seriously consider it

FYI- there's apparently only like 40 AXLs in use in the entire world

No, 2 - 4 module trains lashed together and 2 directions of travel east and west bound with a 2 or 5 minute headway. Not to say that such headway’s are doable in the US. Crush capacities are above rated anyways

256 * 2 * 2 * 30 = 30,720
256 * 2 * 2 * 15 = 12,288

[Anthony_Hugo98]

One thing to think of is what a city doesn't have.

I would put hotel space as KC's weak spot. We know this from Walmart pulling an event when they had people all over town.

One thing in our favor at KCI will be having three runways and a functionally brand new terminal with tons of capacity compared to others on the list and freeways with the space to setup end to end express lanes all over the city. Can send large busses same day from the airport via 435. the inside lane of 435 is nonstop and even becomes the ramp to the stadiums.

Maybe Atlanta looks better for venue reasons, but adding dozens of flights will not be as easy with a good percentage of the country connecting through it to games in other cities and their traffic is horrible.

The big crunch spot in any city is going to be the general aviation airports. There will be huge VIP air travel demand for each city. The president of Croatia attended games in 2018. I'm not sure downtown could handle Air Force One but many countries have 737s in use, and they certainly can fly into MKC. Have them fly in, drop off and fly out to KCI to park seems reasonable. Smaller planes could fly to smaller regional airports to park.

Comparing to Atlanta again, their general aviation airports aren't nearly as close to everything. So for KC, being able to bring a VIP into downtown and take them straight to a downtown hotel within ten minutes has to be a positive.

On top of MKC, we also have new century for anything 747 and smaller, as well as Johnson county executive for private jets. Airport capacity shouldn’t be too much an issue, even the smaller ones

[normalthings]

One thing to think of is what a city doesn't have.

I would put hotel space as KC's weak spot. We know this from Walmart pulling an event when they had people all over town.

One thing in our favor at KCI will be having three runways and a functionally brand new terminal with tons of capacity compared to others on the list and freeways with the space to setup end to end express lanes all over the city. Can send large busses same day from the airport via 435. the inside lane of 435 is nonstop and even becomes the ramp to the stadiums.

Maybe Atlanta looks better for venue reasons, but adding dozens of flights will not be as easy with a good percentage of the country connecting through it to games in other cities and their traffic is horrible.

The big crunch spot in any city is going to be the general aviation airports. There will be huge VIP air travel demand for each city. The president of Croatia attended games in 2018. I'm not sure downtown could handle Air Force One but many countries have 737s in use, and they certainly can fly into MKC. Have them fly in, drop off and fly out to KCI to park seems reasonable. Smaller planes could fly to smaller regional airports to park.

Comparing to Atlanta again, their general aviation airports aren't nearly as close to everything. So for KC, being able to bring a VIP into downtown and take them straight to a downtown hotel within ten minutes has to be a positive.

On top of MKC, we also have new century for anything 747 and smaller, as well as Johnson county executive for private jets. Airport capacity shouldn’t be too much an issue, even the smaller ones

MKC can support 747s but there is only so much ramp space. KCI is the only Port of entry in the region. IIRC MKC can accept international arrivals if you call ahead and pay for CBP to come down. I don’t know if Johnson County or Liberty can do that.

KC CBP supports mobile passport which is only in 20-30 cities. Really speeds up the entry process.

Ideally, in terms of tourism, KC hosts team USA, Canada, or Mexico. US MNT gets placed in KC most years for Concaaf because of the quality of our facilities.

[Anthony_Hugo98]

One thing to think of is what a city doesn't have.

I would put hotel space as KC's weak spot. We know this from Walmart pulling an event when they had people all over town.

One thing in our favor at KCI will be having three runways and a functionally brand new terminal with tons of capacity compared to others on the list and freeways with the space to setup end to end express lanes all over the city. Can send large busses same day from the airport via 435. the inside lane of 435 is nonstop and even becomes the ramp to the stadiums.

Maybe Atlanta looks better for venue reasons, but adding dozens of flights will not be as easy with a good percentage of the country connecting through it to games in other cities and their traffic is horrible.

The big crunch spot in any city is going to be the general aviation airports. There will be huge VIP air travel demand for each city. The president of Croatia attended games in 2018. I'm not sure downtown could handle Air Force One but many countries have 737s in use, and they certainly can fly into MKC. Have them fly in, drop off and fly out to KCI to park seems reasonable. Smaller planes could fly to smaller regional airports to park.

Comparing to Atlanta again, their general aviation airports aren't nearly as close to everything. So for KC, being able to bring a VIP into downtown and take them straight to a downtown hotel within ten minutes has to be a positive.

On top of MKC, we also have new century for anything 747 and smaller, as well as Johnson county executive for private jets. Airport capacity shouldn’t be too much an issue, even the smaller ones

MKC can support 747s but there is only so much ramp space. KCI is the only Port of entry in the region. IIRC MKC can accept international arrivals if you call ahead and pay for CBP to come down. I don’t know if Johnson County or Liberty can do that.

KC CBP supports mobile passport which is only in 20-30 cities. Really speeds up the entry process.

Ideally, in terms of tourism, KC hosts team USA, Canada, or Mexico. US MNT gets placed in KC most years for Concaaf because of the quality of our facilities.

I was more so speaking in terms of private flights and any foreign officials. You do present solid points though, and our new facilities should help to expedite and facilitate any foreign flights we have

[normalthings]

I think that FlyingEmber makes a good point in regards to hotel capacity. This would be an opportunity for KC to build downtown hotel to boost our future convention and event business. Really need at least one 5 star hotel though.

Could also build a few amenity filled apartment buildings as AirBnB hotels before going into service as housing after the event.

[AlkaliAxel]

I do think the streetcar helps in terms of, by 2026, you could stay anywhere down by Plaza and make it to a shuttle in downtown to the stadium for free. A part of the World Cup bid is they also acknowledge that thousands will come into KC just to be there, if we have games. That's where I think the streetcar also comes in handy.

I'm not sure about hotels, but on that graphic someone posted a while back, KC had more hotels than Denver.

[GRID]

I'm not sure about hotels, but on that graphic someone posted a while back, KC had more hotels than Denver.

No way. KC may have more "rooms". KC is at an interstate crossroads so it has a lot of low end suburban hotels. But Denver has way more higher end hotels. Loews has helped some, but the KC Westin may not stay a Westin much longer and KC doesn't even have a top tier Hyatt or Marriott and many other flags like W, four seasons, omni etc.

Would be nice if 4 light was also a hotel.

And the hotels by the stadiums have really tanked. Adams mark is closed and deteriorating. The Drury Inn has been changed to some lower chain. Really wish the city and county would clean up the truman sport complex area.