By Ed White
LOS ANGELES, June 27 (Reuters) - On every World Cup match day, tens of thousands of American and foreign fans are piling into Union Station in downtown Los Angeles to ride special buses straight to the Inglewood stadium, while thousands more watch in the Fan Zone inside and outside the ornate Art Deco station.
As soon as a bewildered soccer fan arrives, there are "ambassadors" there to help them find their way to the buses or Fan Zone, or if they are feeling overcome by stress or heat,
lead them to "calming pods" and hydration centres.
"We've had folks come in who are overwhelmed by all the sounds and the activity happening at the station," said Armando Roman, a manager in LA Metro's civil rights, racial equity and inclusion and accessibility group.
"We've also had folks who have come in and used it to pray, we've also had folks come in and breast-feed, all types of different reasons."
LA Metro, the public transit authority, is not making lots of money from the World Cup. Each round trip to the stadium costs $3.50, with hundreds of staff being hired for the extra efforts, with buses being clad in World Cup livery, and with traffic control and security around the stadium making transport logistics even more than the daily L.A. struggle.
But for LA Metro, doubling down on the World Cup opportunity is part of its declared strategy of "building the most ambitious transportation infrastructure program in the United States."
For a city world-renowned for freeways and car culture, drawing visiting football fans into the system has not been a challenge for those who have researched the situation.
"We didn't want to sit in traffic and this was a lot less expensive," said Crystal Gristina, 46, from New Orleans, who was heading to Thursday's U.S.-Turkey match with her children, husband and friends.
Renting a car and paying about $200 for parking near the stadium also was not an attractive proposition to them.
'THE TRAIN WAS FUN'
Brandon Luna, 29, of San Diego and his uncle, Brian Stanton, 51, from Maryland on the U.S. East Coast, who were decked out in stars-and-stripes bandanas, American flags and U.S. shirts, had just arrived on the Amtrak train from San Diego and were in the line to board the World Cup bus to the stadium.
"On the Amtrak you chill, you just sit, you can have a drink, watch the ocean go by," said Luna. "I saw all the World Cup buses around the county and said 'Yup, that's what I'm going to do.'"
Stanton, who was initially sceptical of taking public transport in Southern California, said "the train was fun," with some U.S. fans dressed as historical characters like George Washington.
So far more than 20,000 people have ridden to each match on the World Cup buses, with many thousands more taking normal buses and trains to the stadium area.
The June 18 Switzerland-Bosnia and Herzegovina match had more than 52,000 people take the transit system to the match, which is more than half the stadium's capacity. Ridership has been growing during the tournament, LA Metro says.
Inside Union Station, hundreds of Colombia and Germany supporters were cheering their teams, who they were watching on a giant TV screen in the Fan Zone.
Many would not be going to the stadium for the local match, but had come downtown for a collective fan experience.
"We just wanted the World Cup feeling, the fan-fest, to be part of it, and just feel the excitement," said Jorge Yunda, 45, an Ecuadorean American who came to Union Station with his wife, his sons and a grandson, as well as his sister-in-law and her family. "We love it. As South Americans we feel the passion."
(Reporting by Ed White; Editing by Christian Radnedge)
