Dear NFL,
As a member of the media, I beg you not to have the Super Bowl back in Miami anytime soon. No offense South Florida, but it has been a taxing week for those of us trying to cover the big game.
Why?
Because it seemed as though each important venue was in a different state. The Saints' team hotel - downtown Miami. The Colts' team hotel - Fort Lauderdale. The broadcast locations for major networks, the nightlife - South Beach. The NFL Media Center - Fort Lauderdale. What all of this translated into was typically a minimum commute of 40 minutes to an hour to get from one location to the next. And then there was traffic and parking.
A venture to South Beach meant at least another 30 minutes - and sometimes MUCH longer - would be wasted circling like a vulture, with the coveted prey being a parking spot. Parking garages are almost non-existent. Free parking IS non-existent. One lot we used was $20 on Wednesday, $30 on Thursday afternoon, and up to $40 by Thursday night. And by the way, have fun parking a 15-passenger van in South Beach's golf cart-sized spots as we usually did.
And don't get me started on Miami's street names...or should I say numbers? There's NW 13 Avenue, but that's not the same as NW 13 Street...and the 2 roads with essentially the same name often intersect each other, just to really mess with you. I wonder if a group of Florida DOTD employees doesn't get their daily entertainment monitoring traffic cameras for out-of-towners like us trying to navigate the labyrinth that is Miami.
Forget about GPS in Miami. The hotel we stayed at in the heart of downtown was non-existent according to 2 different GPS boxes. As myself and producer Angelle Dupre went into hour 2 of being lost well after midnight Sunday night/Monday morning, I swear I saw a street sign that said NW 1 Street Avenue. You've got to be (insert expletive) kidding me!
It's clear to me that Miami's street names were chosen by the same team of engineers that wrote VCR programming instructions in the '80s and those furniture assembly instructions that require a tub of glue for the 1,000 wooden dowel holes.
Now, to be fair, I'm a meteorologist reporting from a Super Bowl for probably the first and last time in my career. So I'm not exactly the voice of experience when it comes to these things. But me and my coworkers couldn't stop talking about how much easier this would have been in a city like New Orleans. Think about it...while occasionally long walks, it's feasible that one could get from the Superdome to the Convention Center to the French Qiuarter all by foot. At the very least, with a little help from inexpensive public transit.
As we make our way up the Florida Turnpike, I'm reminded of a line I've heard uttered by ESPN employees who don't care for the network's headquarters location. It goes, "Happiness is Bristol in my rearview mirror." My modified version...happiness is a Saints' Super Bowl victory AND Miami in my rearview mirror.
- Steve Caparotta
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
