Why Seattle's highway traffic during World Cup might be just fine

Seattle-area traffic during the 2026 FIFA Men's World Cup in June and July might be tolerable, and probably no worse than a weeknight Seahawks game.

After months of headlines and official warnings that tourists will flood the city, how can travel be OK?

For openers, congested Interstate 5 will regain two lanes, when a big repave on the Ship Canal Bridge in North Seattle pauses for five weeks.

Also, Seattle's menagerie of trains, highways, ferries, buses and walk-bike lanes offers more options than some host areas, such as New Jersey or Kansas City, where stadiums are isolated miles from downtown, said Ahmed Darrat, chief product officer for the Kirkland-based INRIX traffic data firm.

This is just my personal intuition, I would guess that travel times are actually going to be lower than the average day," he said.

"My experience has been in the past, that when there's a lot of press about very tight-window events, that people avoid the event as much as they can."

The Washington State Department of Transportation takes a less rosy view.

"Travel will be significantly more challenging during the World Cup, even for people not attending matches," said WSDOT's team, led by regional traffic engineer Mike Swires.

Like the tournament's deeply grooved Trionda soccer ball, motorists should experience some drag, but a stable trajectory toward their goal of reaching "Seattle Stadium," FIFA's alias for Lumen Field.

"My best comparison is probably like Monday Night Football," when weeknight football crowds at the 69,000-seat stadium mix with commuters, Darrat said.

Unlike those weeknight NFL games, four of six soccer matches here are scheduled midday, which could reduce conflicts with heavy evening traffic. The USA vs. Australia contest, at noon June 19, precedes a Mariners baseball game seven hours later, on the Juneteenth holiday.

Employers may allow work-from-home days, Darrat said. Schools will begin summer breaks mid-June. People might reschedule personal appointments. International soccer fans are likely to arrive from hotels, compared with Seahawks fans driving in. That means a higher share who walk, bike, scoot or take shuttle buses, Darrat said.

That "average day" Darrat mentioned, during I-5 lane repaving, has averaged a sluggish 56 minutes in mornings from Lynnwood to Seattle, and 40 minutes in morning and afternoon from Tukwila to the University District. This spring, about 190,000 cars and trucks per day squeezed through the I-5 bridge, state counts say, even before two lanes reopen in mid-June.

WSDOT won't predict World Cup trip times because there are "simply too many variables" such as attendance, transit use, border crossings, fan events, security and VIP motorcades.

"What we can say with confidence is that travel will be significantly more challenging during the World Cup, even for people not attending matches," state officials wrote.

"We're never going to make everybody happy. We'd rather people be aware and overprepared," said Ryan Overton, deputy communications director at WSDOT.

Road lane roulette

Interstate 5 will revert to full capacity as crews take a break from repaving two lanes of the northbound Ship Canal Bridge, from June 8 to July 10. Express lanes will go southbound in mornings and flip to northbound in afternoons.

Likewise, the I-405 toll lanes project between Bellevue and Renton will suspend its weekend full-directional closures, that have bedeviled drivers all year.

Highway construction will pause 48 hours statewide around match times in Seattle, and for 72 hours on I-5 between Everett and the Canadian border when Vancouver, B.C., and Seattle matches fall on back-to-back dates, June 18 and 19, July 1 and 2, and July 6 and 7.

An exception is Highway 3 at Gorst, in Kitsap County, which closes June 13 for a two-week culvert replacement, before salmon migration season.

Be warned - on the June 6-7 and July 11-12 weekends, the mainline of northbound I-5 will close from I-90 to the U District (while express lanes point north), when contractors move equipment at the Ship Canal Bridge.

For people escaping traffic, Sound Transit's new light rail corridor across Lake Washington should ease the trip for fans coming from the Eastside. Cross-lake trains, and trains south of downtown, will run every eight minutes on game days, while trains between downtown and Lynnwood arrive every four minutes, until 1 a.m. Sounder commuter trains will go from Everett and Lakewood to all World Cup matches.

"If you usually drive to a park-and-ride, try to take a bus there, or get dropped off," because garages are likely to overflow, advises Tara Peters, communications director for the nonprofit Commute Seattle.

Seattle passed a stress test Feb. 11, albeit with some nerve-wracking station crowds and downtown gridlock, as the Seahawks Super Bowl victory parade brought hundreds of thousands of people downtown, and trains carried more than 230,000 passengers.

WSDOT called that the "best example" of an influx, except the World Cup will bring crowds on several days.

Yinhai Wang, director of the Washington State Transportation Center, said regional freeways should be fine, especially with new transit capacity available.

He expects severe clogs downtown, where road space already maxes out under everyday volumes. For security and traffic control, most of First Avenue South next to the stadium will close, while taxi and ride-hailing cars can't get as close as usual.

Seattle will cordon a Pioneer Square car-free zone every soccer day, for 18 blocks, including First Avenue South at the stadium.

Fan parties outside will bring bigger total crowds than a football game, especially when the U.S. team plays. People will come and go slowly, so stadium-area congestion should last for hours, instead of a brief, intense rush after NFL games, Wang predicts.

Travelers are urged to allow additional time for congestion, choose nondrive options, or reschedule trips. Check traffic maps and alerts.

"The best advice I could give people is linger," Darrat said. "Take transit. Go to local businesses, take transit and walk. There are a lot of great places to eat, things to do down there.

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