While the first major test of the World Cup’s transit system at its New York-New Jersey venue seems to have received a passing grade from most fans, bumper-to-bumper traffic forced hundreds of spectators and volunteers at the Brazil-Morocco group stage match to ditch cars and walk a mile or more in the 87-degree heat to make it to the stadium on time.
Fabio Vassao, a 50-year-old Brazilian engineer visiting from Sao Paolo, stayed in a nearby New Jersey Marriot. He called an Uber to the American Dream Mall, which “should be 10 minutes” without traffic. Instead Vassao sat in the car for about 20 minutes before getting out and doing another 20 minutes on foot.
The same trouble persisted hours before kickoff for the highly anticipated match, which ended in a 1-1 draw. Callum Schneider, a 22-year-old World Cup volunteer from Bergen County, had one of his parents drop him off once they crossed onto the grounds of MetLife Stadium (renamed to New York New Jersey Stadium for the tournament). The traffic was only bad the last 10 minutes or so of his ride, he said, but Schneider still walked about a mile.
“When we passed the Uber drop-off, this is four hours before kickoff, the queue of cars was just ridiculously long,” he said, adding that it would only worsen later in the day. “It was almost backed up to the freeway.”
