‘Arrowhead nightmare’: Bus takes more than an hour to get to World Cup in KC
One of the biggest fears for the World Cup in Kansas City came true on the first match day: game-day traffic.
Hundreds of fans traveled to Arrowhead Stadium through the ConnectKC26 bus service. The pickup spot on 27th Street and Main Street was filled with Argentina and Algeria fans. Excitement was high for the first Kansas City match, with fans on both sides chanting and hyping themselves up to watch.
But that energy didn’t translate hugely on the ride to Arrowhead. On one ConnectKC26 bus, fans were relatively quiet for most of the ride — likely because it took an hour-and-a half to get to the stadium.
For context, a ride to Arrowhead from the National WWI Museum & Memorial would typically be a 20 minute drive or so. Of course, this doesn’t take into consideration World Cup traffic.
Folks on the Kansas City Reddit had some strong opinions regarding the ConnectKC2026 bus situation. One user said they spent 90 minutes waiting to get on a bus near the Fan Fest. They claimed that there weren’t enough buses and that folks got rowdy until security and police got involved.
Another user who said they live close to the Crown Center said that buses were backed up over a mile to get to Fan Fest.
“Seems like they don’t have enough people directing buses. Several of the stops have lines of people waiting for buses, and the buses are just sitting there not moving,” the user said.
Josh Dereje, who’s from Minneapolis, was one of the few people who said traffic wasn’t too bad when he arrived at Arrowhead, which was around 7:30 p.m. His difficulty was getting onto the bus, which had hundreds of people gathered around the parking lot at once.
“It was a little tricky in the beginning, but once you get on, there was A/C, there wasn’t too much traffic. Other than waiting in the sun for the bus itself, everything else was pretty good.”
People who took the ConnectKC2026 bus were dropped off in Lot D, which led to a lengthy walk to enter Arrowhead due to additional gates were installed to keep fans in order.
Chelsea Brown came from New York to catch the KC matchup, and described the traffic getting to the venue n the bus as “incredibly” difficult.
“We were in traffic for an hour and a half, maybe two to get here. We think we left around 4:30, and we’re getting here now,” Brown said, who was rushing to get inside Arrowhead at 7:50 p.m., ahead of the 8 p.m. kickoff.
Brown was with her mother-in-law, who lives in Kansas City, and they said that the entry to get into Arrowhead for this game isn’t the same as it would be for a Chiefs game. She said the group had to drive around the stadium three times because they couldn’t get through their gates.
Gordon Wilson was doing rideshare at Arrowhead on Tuesday, calling it an “Arrowhead nightmare.” In an email, he said he took two riders to the stadium, both taking multiple hours to drop them off due to traffic.
“For some reason they changed the drop-off area from the usual one for a Chiefs game. Instead of coming off on Blue Parkway, they are having us come on Manchester and then make two left turns,” he said. Wilson said both his riders bailed from the car before making it to the dropoff area.
The ConnectKC2026 buses have 53 seats. The stadium buses take fans to and from six different spots in the metro. The regional buses, which were suspended during the traffic, make 15 stops, including in Lawrence, Lenexa, Overland Park and more.
This story was originally published June 16, 2026 at 10:48 PM.
