LA will host the World Cup and Olympics in the heat of summer. Will the city be ready?

If 90 degree days in March are any indication, by the time the World Cup arrives in Los Angeles this summer, it could be really hot.

As L.A. prepares to host the global soccer tournament – and the Olympics in 2028 – organizers and local officials say that making sure fans and city infrastructure are ready to endure the heat is critical. That's especially true as the region gets warmer due to climate change.

That's no easy feat in Los Angeles, a city overflowing with practically shade-less palm trees, exposed bus stops and miles of asphalt.

" We're living in a new reality where heat is no longer a background condition – it's an operational threat, a public health emergency,"  Susana Reyes, Metro's head of sustainability policy, said at a recent county meeting on Olympics preparations. "[It] shows up first where people are most exposed: on the sidewalks, at bus stops, at stadium queuing lines and on long walks to and from transit."

L.A.'s making plans for locals and visitors who will be at SoFi Stadium, fan events, and watch parties. Those changes, though, will be temporary: pop-up hydration stations, shade structures and a public messaging campaign on how to stay safe in the heat.

Some say they hope the tournament can lead to more permanent investments in Los Angeles.

"The World Cup provides an opportunity… to test things out during the World Cup and then scale them up in advance of 2028," said Edith de Guzman with ShadeLA, a collaboration between USC and UCLA working with local governments to bring more permanent shade to the Los Angeles area.

What's LA's plan?

Los Angeles is counting on its public transit system to carry a lot of the burden when an influx of fans come to town this summer and again for the Olympic Games. That means many fans, local and visiting, will be on foot, the bus or train in a city that is famously car-centric.

" For major events like the World Cup and the Olympics, millions of visitors will rely on transit often during the hottest parts of the day," said Reyes, with Metro. " We are concerned about seniors, children, people with disabilities as they take public transit and are exposed under the heat of the sun."

Metro will deploy temporary pop-up shade structures and hydration stations at the bus stops it's setting up specifically to shuttle people to and from SoFi Stadium.

It will also launch a public messaging campaign starting next month, putting up signage on buses and at bus stops with tips on staying cool and avoiding heat illness.

A spokesperson with the mayor's office said the city will use similar tactics at its fan watch parties that are slated to take place across the city, and is collaborating with council districts and the Department of Parks and Recreation on shade structures and hydration stations.

Olympic deadlines for more shade, bus shelters, hydration stations

There are bigger expectations for L.A.'s plans to address the heat come 2028. The last two times the Olympics came to Los Angeles, the city launched major tree planting programs. L.A. planted tens of thousands of palm trees in the run up to 1932. An L.A. non-profit led the charge to plant one million trees ahead of the 1984 Games.

Planners are taking a different approach ahead of this Olympics, focusing on shade structures more broadly rather than specifically on planting trees.

Edith de Guzman with ShadeLA said that's because planting trees is resource intensive, requiring funds to plant and maintain the trees, especially in the first years after they've been planted. Planting trees also requires community buy-in.

" [Research] really points to shade as being the ingredient that is kind of a slam dunk way to create that safety that we seek," she said. " Trees are still our favorite type of cooling, but we're broadening it to also include more flexibility."

That means canopies, pop-up structures and infrastructure to create shade, with or without tree cover.

ShadeLA is working with the city, county and Olympics committee LA28 on a regional plan to bring more shade to communities ahead of 2028. It's created a map of communities lacking tree cover that are expected to see an influx of activity from the World Cup, Super Bowl and Olympics.

But many of the specifics are still to come. That's also true of LA28, which has promised to create a "Heat Mitigation Plan." A spokesperson told LAist that it was expected to be finished by mid-2027.

One permanent program already in the works will bring more shade to L.A.'s transit riders. The Bureau of Street Services is building 3,000 new bus shelters around the city to replace L.A.'s many exposed transit stops. According to Dan Halden with StreetsLA, the department has installed 300 shelters since 2024, and expects to add 200 more by 2028.

Still, L.A. has a long way to go. In L.A. County, urban areas have just 21% shade cover at noon on average, according to data from the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation – less than the national average of 27%. And it's only getting hotter. By 2050, average temperatures in the county are expected to rise by almost four degrees.