After years of planning and preparation, Toronto’s inaugural FIFA World Cup match is now just 100 days away.
On June 12 at 3 p.m., tens of thousands of people will descend on the exhibition grounds to watch the first match of Canada’s international soccer tournament.
However, their opponent is yet to be decided. Matches at the end of March will determine whether Wales, Bosnia and Herzegovina or Northern Ireland compete in that game.
For the rest of June and the first week of July, Toronto will also host matches involving countries such as Ghana, Germany, Croatia and Senegal.
City’s final match on July 2 will be a round of 32 match.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose government is putting up $97 million to host the competition, said the provincial funds will help with health care and security costs.
“We’ve committed about $100 million to make sure we attract people from all over the world for FIFA. It’s going to be incredible. A big part of that is going to be security, another part of that — when you have hundreds of thousands of visitors — is health care. Hospitals need support,” Ford said at an unrelated event on Monday.
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“Toronto, Ontario, is on the map. People from all over the world are coming here.”
Roughly $100 million comes from the federal government, while the city of Toronto is paying the remaining $170 million-plus for the games.
The city will lead work with FIFA to prepare Toronto for the World Cup.
Staff expect congestion in downtown corridors to be at least 10 percent worse during the competition, especially during the finals, and are considering limiting parking options as well as imposing road closures or construction bans to ensure people can get around.
While Toronto leans heavily on its streetcar network to take people to and from games, the TTC is currently in a race to get Bathurst Street to handle thousands of soccer fans.
The streetcar in Bathurst feeds the area adjacent to BMO Field Stadium and is the centerpiece of Toronto’s plan to bring thousands of people around. To do so, authorities are looking to massively increase service on the line.
The route was designated as a RapidTO project last year with the Dufferin Street Bus, to create red-colored priority lanes where cars can travel unimpeded. Headways will also be increased so that street cars run approximately every five minutes during FIFA celebrations.
To accommodate that, the city is testing the power grid to make sure overhead systems can handle the increased service.
The city is set to announce its full traffic plan in March and will hold a free celebration on Tuesday evening to mark 100 days until the Games begin.
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(tags to translate)FIFA World Cup
