ATLANTA – Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens inherited a wide range of infrastructure problems when he took office four years ago, from dilapidated streets to a crumbling water system that led to severe outages last year.

And with the World Cup on the horizon, experts say the city needs to ramp up its capital project delivery to ensure Atlanta can handle the hundreds of thousands of visitors expected.

It will be one of the mayor’s biggest challenges if he wins reelection against three challengers Nov. 4. But critics say the soccer tournament deadline for street and water improvements is a lofty goal, and it is unlikely that many of the infrastructure-related projects Dickens has in mind will be completed by the time he ends an expected second term in 2030. Ahead of next summer’s tournament, downtown streets are scheduled to be remade with $120 million worth of new asphalt, painted crosswalks, streetlights and sidewalks. Much of the Centennial Yards development is supposed to be finished. The water system must successfully handle the demands of a surge of visitors totaling more than half the city’s population.