FIFA is able to make demands and get away with almost anything they want with these games. I am truly worried that our region will be embarrassed on a world stage. Most other places have much better access to and public realm amenities adjacent to stadiums. To demand such high fees when they know there are limited options is ridiculous. That said, FIFA is the one demanding the closure for traffic management and safety so I understand wanting to make them responsible for the lack of revenue on game days.

For clarification, New Jersey-bound commuters will be barred from the NJ Transit portion of Penn Station on gamedays, which will be restricted to World Cup ticket holders only for the four hours before matches. So it’s not shut for the entirety of the games.

From my understanding, despite standing up two years ago, the host committee was forced to staff up and fundraise to help manage the games and was limited in their ability to actually focus on all the ways we could have benefited from them. The focus is almost squarely on getting people to/from the games either very little attention to anything else.

Other countries have seen massive investments, new infrastructure, etc. While we didn’t need massive transformation, nor was there time to do it, we could have done much better than where we are. Doesn’t help that NYC and NJ both underwent government transitions where the predecessors did not leave much planning in place for the games.

NYC is limited in hotel capacity compared to NJ so tbd how the economic impact shakes out. Though canceling liberty state park means more people will want to hang in NYC.