After years of planning and preparation, Toronto’s opening FIFA World Cup match is now just 100 days away.
On June 12 at 3 p.m., tens of thousands will descend on Exhibition Place to watch Canada play their first game of the international soccer tournament.
Their opponent, however, is still to be decided. Matches in late March will determine if Wales, Bosnia and Herzegovina or Northern Ireland will compete in that game.
Through the rest of June and the first week of July, Toronto will also host matches featuring countries such as Ghana, Germany, Croatia and Senegal.
The city’s final match will be a Round of 32 game on July 2.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose government is putting $97 million toward hosting the competition, said provincial funds would help with the cost of health care and security.
“We committed almost $100 million to make sure that we attract everyone from around the world for FIFA. It’s going to be incredible. A big chunk of that is going to be security, another chunk of it — when you have hundreds of thousands of visitors — is health care. The hospitals are going to need support,” Ford said at an unrelated event on Monday.
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“Toronto, Ontario, is on the map. People from around the world are coming here.”
Roughly $100 million will also come 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 to see traffic get at least 10 per cent worse on downtown corridors during the competition, particularly around the final game, and are considering limiting parking options as well as imposing road closures or construction bans to ensure people can get around.
Toronto will also lean heavily on its streetcar network to get people to and from the games, with the TTC currently in a race to get Bathurst Street ready to handle thousands of soccer fans.
The streetcar on Bathurst feeds into the area beside BMO Field Stadium and is at the centre of Toronto’s plan to move thousands around. To do so, officials are looking to massively ramp up service along the line.
The route was designated as a RapidTO project, along with the Dufferin Street bus, last year to create red-painted priority lanes where transit can run without being interrupted by cars. Headways will also be increased so streetcars run roughly every five minutes during the FIFA celebrations.
In order to accommodate that, the city is testing the power grid to ensure overhead systems will be able to handle the increased service.
The city is set to announce its full traffic plan sometime in March and will hold a free celebration Tuesday evening to mark 100 days until the games kick off.
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