Until such time as they've corrected the terrible parking logisitcs there. I spent over 90 minutes in my car Wednesday night, on the grounds of the venue, either waiting to park or waiting to exit. That's reprehensible!!! 1. There is probably sufficent parking to the immediate south of the stadium, but it was rendered unusable by the rains. That area must be paved or graveled over, just like some of the the parking surrounding Toyota Park. Any if a stadium doesn't have sufficient parking for the number of fans expected at a match within 500 yards, then they must have enough shuttle buses on-hand to drop fans within 300 yards of their parking space. 2. Pedestrians MUST be segregated from cars as much as possible, including fencing to control their flow back into the parking areas. Instead it was a free-for-all and the police were allowing pedestrian traffic to interrupt the flow of traffic exiting the parking area, when those pedestrians could have been kept on the other side of the street, and kept an uninterrupted flow of traffic from the parking lot. 3. More than half the gates to the parking area were not in use, probably due to the pedestrian free-for-all, but it also prevented traffic from flowing west on 17th street for those who didn't need to get on to 71. 4. USSF -- you need to have staff members, or designated (secret shopper type) fans park in each lot at a venue and report on the effectiveness of traffic flow entering and leaving each site. If certain venues screw it up, then they shouldn't host matches of this caliber.
If it was freezing weather as it was in 2001 or as it was at the time they chose the venue it wouldn't have been a problem. God threw 'em a curve ball with the 60F weather during the day and rain at night. Was it really that much of a hardship for you? I mean it was crazy, but I think it adds to the surreal feeling of the night.
Sorry you were inconvenienced. I would have done mud angels to see that game. The mud, rain, wind, and mayhem of people made it even more exciting. I would go to another match there in the exact same conditions tomorrow. I hope the US has more matches there. As long as you saw the game, who gives a crap about what it took you to get there.
Meh, you could have had a bus driver tell you as he was dropping you off at the stadium that he wouldn't be back until 2 AM. But I agree, let's give up home field advantage against Mexico because you couldn't get in and out like it was a McDonald's Drive Thru.
Your sob story reminds me of the mess in Phoenix 2 years ago when the USA played Mexico. 90+ minutes to get out of the parking lot. 2 hours to get cross town to get to the game! But we did have beautiful weather, and 60 or 70,000 people!
Jesus loves you...............and so does Lucifer. You okay today or did someone pee in your food? It's Friday, the weekend, the USA just beat Mexico, but you are not satisfied. C'mon dude, liven up yourself. Just for you, we'll have USA vs. Mexico in Chicago, JUST FOR YOU
Didn't look exactly like the best parking lot on the way out...but it did allow a bunch of ESCers to chant songs in Spanish to Mexican fans in their vehicles as they slowly made the procession out of the lots. 99% said nothing, but we did notice, that windows were rolled down to listen to the chants, and then rolled back up a minute or so later...in silence. Sos cagon Mexico.
Dude, I was joking. The next WCQ after this round will be in 2012. And since all the venues have been announced....
It might come off as a little whiny, but for the most part he's right. I was in the car for about 2 hours within a mile of the venue and we didn't arrive until the 30th minute. I realize the conditions were poor and I agree that if anything it just added to the atmosphere, but there were a lot of people who missed a lot of the game because the venue/city couldn't handle it.
ugh! that doesn't even sound right... As far a weather/$hitty conditions go... My buddy from AZ and myself, ended up walking for a good hour (at least) in not such a good neighborhood (read ghetto) under the rain, almost got blown away by the winds and took 2 city buses to get to CSS but all that well worth it to watch my 4th (his 1st!) Dos a Cero match!
I had no problems getting into the parking lot. Of course, I had VIP parking and also showed up at 12noon.
A bit of an overboard reaction? Sure, maybe the should fix the way they work their parking but to suspend Crew as a WCQ venue is a bit much. There are always shuttles, taxis and other ways of getting to the stadium.
My group left the stadium about 15 minutes after game. We had no problems getting through the people in the stadium or right outside the stadium. We parked at the Expo Hall/FFA Center. Yeah, we had a little ways to walk to the Stadium but by the time you got to the car traffic had thinned out. Subsequently we had ZERO problems with traffic. We management to hop right on I-71. We didn't sit in traffic. The best advice to is to plan ahead. Park were you can get out fast and avoid traffic. I've been to Stadium dozens of times so I had a slight advantage. But still even if you aren't familiar it doesn't hurt to look at a map! But to say Columbus should be suspended as a venue is asinine. Completely stupid. Many, many, many stadiums have worse parking. It ain't great but people deal with it. Nothing to bitch over. With the economic times I doubt there are many monetary resources to fix traffic logistics of stadiums.
Holy crap...this proves that some people are just never satisfied. Or some people just like to troll and yank chains.
FWIW, the Crew has been trying to get the non-paved parking lots improved for years. But, since it doesn't own that land, there's little the club can really do about it. The OH state fair peeps own the land, and they're not interested in paving them, or even installing a drainage system.
Wake up you fools, this isn't about me sitting there for 90 minutes, this is about the owners of Crew Stadium being too cheap to throw down 50 or 100 truckloads of gravel in the parking area, and not having enough personnel to keep traffic moving. Fans are asked to pay $10-$15 per car for parking on top of a $75 - $100 average ticket, it shouldn't be too much to ask the venue operators to have a way to get 10,000 cars out of the area in 45 minutes or less, especially with 3 separate interchanges available to get traffic on to Interstate 71. The parking fees for one event should cover the cost of the gravel. And I'd like to know what venues are worse than this, because I've been to every venue in Chicago & Milwaukee, and some in St. Louis, Baltimore, LA & San Fran. Columbus was worse than any of those by a long shot.
Indeed, let's move the match away from the most successful US Men's National team venue in history because it was hard for you to get in and out of the parking lot! Alternatively, you could simply STFU.
And if it is the State of Ohio that owns the land, they could spread the gravel and call it "economic stimulus". Point is, if their going to charge for parking, they're obliged to provide a reasonable flow. No parking charge, I'll live with whatever happens. And if you think that the US can't win this game in any of 12 other US stadiums, then we suck, and we'll never be close to competing with the top European and South American countries for a World Cup title.