Car Wars
Summary: Addressing parking worries while hanging out on the North Shore with Steelers fans. Reporter: John Shumway, KDKA Channel 2 Airtime: 2 minutes, 18 seconds on Aug. 13 Visuals: * Live, edge-of-your-seat, PennDOT-cam film of I-376 inbound! * Shumway, yukking it up with the locals in a roadside lot near Heinz Field. Highlights: * When anchor Stacy Smith warns, "Traffic into the city could be a nightmare this evening, with gamblers, football fans and also Keith Urban concert-goers headed into the Mellon Arena. And then, there's also the question of where are all of those people going to park?" * When Shumway answers, "Well, probably the best news is it is preseason and an awful lot of the regulars don't even come. ... [T]hey give their tickets away, and we often see a lot of the lots are not quite as full as normal. But as you can see by the line of traffic, the Steeler fans are ready to get right back into where we were after the Super Bowl in Tampa. And some -- their dedication goes beyond." * When a man introduces himself, after Shumway's prompting, "I'm Mike from Akron, Ohio." Shumway tells him, "That [fake Troy Polamalu] hair has got to be HOT!" Mike answers, "It is. I don't know how women do it. I might need a hair tie by the end of the day." * When Shumway slyly sneaks in -- "It just becomes you." * When Shumway insists, "And you gotta see these folks. I mean, everybody's kinda chillin' out here, just sorta relaxing in the chairs at this point, getting ready to do some serious tailgating. I want to come down here and chat with this young lady for just a second, if I could." * When Shumway asks a girl of about 8, "So, are you an experienced tailgater or is this the first time around?" She answers, hesitantly, "Wellllllll ..." and after a little help from a shirtless nearby man, who looks to be a relative or family friend, she says, "My first time." Shumway asks her, "Is it boring?" She candidly answers, "Yeah." What We Learned: "Serious tailgating" is code for "heavy drinking." Unanswered Question: Don't you ever wonder who these parking and traffic reports are for, when the people who could benefit from them most are already in their cars, en route? News Value: 3. Somehow, I always feel like these reports are meant to make the people who stayed home feel like they are the smart ones. Driving my son to the Blink 182 concert at the Post-Gazette Pavilion early Friday evening (just a little over two hours to get there from the Liberty Tubes), even the radio traffic reports became moot. Let's just say Lamaze has served me well in more ways than one.
