Live Results: Who’s Winning the Traffic Game During Soccer’s Biggest Tournament?

StreetLight is monitoring traffic around three U.S. stadiums during the 2026 World Cup. Results are now in for Los Angeles’s Friday game at SoFi stadium between the U.S. and Paraguay. We’ll have the Saturday night New York/New Jersey game at MetLife stadium soon as well as upcoming games in L.A., New York, and Kansas City, and comparisons against other recent mega-events.

This Friday, June 12 marked the first 2026 World Cup game played in the U.S. The match took place in L.A., with the U.S. facing off against Paraguay at 6PM PT, and the U.S. emerging victorious with a score of 4-1.

But gameplay wasn’t exclusively on the field. Outside the walls of the stadium, transportation agencies in host cities have been running drills for months, deciding how to handle an extraordinary and prolonged traffic surge day-of-the-event.

The World Cup poses a unique challenge for traffic management for a few reasons:

• quantity of games 
• popularity of fan gatherings 
• differences in fan behaviors 
• outcomes of matches as tournaments progress  
• and an influx of international visitors unfamiliar with local systems.

(Join our upcoming webinar to see how traffic is developing at a World Cup host city airport given the expected surge in air travel.)

As with any mega-event, no historical event provides an exact match for travel behavior at the next event. With this in mind, StreetLight is using our real-time Traffic Monitor to capture how traffic is developing at three of the U.S. stadiums as games unfold. We’re on the lookout for when traffic begins to develop, when it eases, what happens when an unexpected disruption occurs (as is inevitable), and how traffic in the different cities compare to each other and previous mega-events.

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In the case of L.A., a sprawled city with a complex transportation network, transportation agencies are directing much of their resources to transit as the action plan for managing congestion chaos. With SoFi stadium located in Inglewood near some of Southern’s California’s most traffic-snarled freeways and limited parking on-site, agencies are investing in express buses around the city and enhanced Metro service to the game, among other strategies. Transit agencies are also providing service to fan events and watch parties throughout the city. Locals and those traveling for other purposes have been warned to expect heavy traffic, with road restrictions and parking controls put in place to help manage flow.

L.A., which will host the 2028 Olympics, has been vocal about treating the World Cup as a dress rehearsal for managing traffic during the upcoming international multi-week event.

So how did traffic flow before, during, and after Friday’s game, and what can L.A. and other host cities learn from the first U.S. match up?

Traffic was significant, of course. Congestion began building around noon, 6 hours ahead of the game, which likely played a role in an opening ceremony that looked only half-attended. Fans reported additional security challenges getting inside the stadium ahead of kick off.

Still, traffic was considerably worse in the hours after the game ended. Traffic appeared largely resolved by 11pm, although the game was over by 7:50PM.

After the U.S. Men’s National Team game on Friday, June 12th, travel times along West Century Boulevard and Manchester Avenue near SoFi showed 1 hour+ travel times to go about 5 miles. Compare that to a week earlier at the same time on Friday, June 5th, when travel times were only 21 minutes, while typical free flow is only 11 minutes on that same corridor.

Stay tuned in the coming days as StreetLight gets results via Traffic Monitor for the other matches in New York, L.A., and Kansas City. We’ll look at how traffic management outcomes evolve from game to game as host cities learn throughout the series and leverage the investments they’ve made to make getting around as seamless as possible.

As we update this analysis, we’ll also compare performance against previous major event days, such as Eras Tours concerts at some of these same stadiums.

Agencies and organizations in cities including L.A., Dallas, Philadelphia, Kansas City, and more are using Traffic Monitor to manage World Cup traffic and its broader impacts on the roadway network before, during, and after the games. Agencies across North America can leverage the real-time data feed alongside historical data to:

• get a bird’s eye view of traffic as it develops
• zero in on any areas of concern
• identify surprise disruptions and their impact on the broader network
• conduct after-action reporting
• and iterate on management strategies as new insights emerge.

To leverage real-time traffic insights for special events in your region, reach out to our team here.