The worst transportation city in America?

Some may say that Houston or Los Angeles top the list, but Miami, where I just visited for the weekend, may be a contender.

One of the main problems with getting around in Miami is the quality of the drivers. A quarter of the people on the road are geriatrics in huge domestic barge-cars who should probably have their licenses revoked for poor vision, hearing or reaction time. Another 10 percent ride around in high-performance Italian or German sports cars that aren't designed for urban use by amateur drivers. The purring of the engine goes to their head and they become as maddeningly aggressive as the geezers are annoyingly passive. Another quarter of the cars on the road are operated by people who can't be bothered to learn English and thus miss exits and instructions since they're not in Spanish or Kreyole. I'm not an anti-immigrant nut, but coming here to work and getting a license without knowing what "merge left" means are two very different things.

The next big problem is bottlenecks. Miami and neighboring Miami Beach are stitched together by a few causeways and within the city, rivers and canals create a series of bottlenecks for drivers. Should there be a problem on one bridge or causeway, it's usually not a big deal to find the next one over, but the signage warning of potential tie-ups is just not sufficient. Why must one spend two hours going ten blocks because of a Haitian festival downtown and only hear about what's causing the delay from the sound of music and the sight of people with flags going to and from the event? Sure, there are traffic reports on the radio, but who would think of regularly checking them at 2 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon?

Public transit is a joke. There is one all-elevated heavy rail line that is inconvenient to everything and doesn't go to the airport, one commuter-rail line that runs infrequently and requires convoluted shuttle-bus transfers to get anywhere and one downtown peoplemover that is great for sports fans and just about nobody else. There are buses here and there, but for a tourist to take a bus would require maps and schedules that most bus stops lack.

Miami Beach, since it is essentially a sandbar, has its own problems. The concentration of Ferarris and Hummers is highest here, but they can't go more than 15 miles per hour because there is no space. A better cicrulator or tourist trolley wouldn't catch on because the whole point of South Beach is to cruise around, letting people see you in your flashy rented car. Of course, people live here, and their predicament is worse, since parking is as limited as my tolerance for bridge and tunnel types hanging out at the Clevelander with popped collars.

That, and the high water table, is why so many apartment buildings were built with first-floor garages. How much "Art Deco charm" is lost strolling down the street and looking up close at something that is more Deep Throat in All The President's Men than Robin Williams in The Birdcage. Feh.