The planned downtown NASCAR race is four months away, and it’s already causing a massive pile-up.
A group of downtown alderpersons is agitated over Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to host NASCAR racing and Taste of Chicago — two likely jam-packed events — on the same Fourth of July weekend.
Normally held in Grant Park, the Taste would move a few blocks north to Polk Brothers Park — a 13-acre green space at the entrance to Navy Pier — to accommodate the stock car racing around the city’s downtown lakefront park.
“It’s insanity,” Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) told Sun-Times reporter Fran Spielman. We’re inclined to agree.
The NASCAR deal — rushed through and approved virtually unilaterally by the mayor and announced with a splashy news conference — never sat well with this Editorial Board.
“Whenever Mayor Lori Lightfoot makes a big announcement, beware of the details that are almost certain to tumble out later,” we warned last August about the event.
And here we are.
One weekend, two big events
The peril of having NASCAR and Taste of Chicago overlap on the July 4th weekend should’ve been obvious to the Lightfoot administration.
It’s a tall order for the city to handle crowds, traffic — the northbound lanes of DuSable Lake Shore Drive between Balbo Drive and Roosevelt Road will be closed as part of the race course — clean-up and police protection for the two events.
“To, last minute, shift this to Navy Pier with the incredible traffic impacts that go with it during 4th of July weekend when we’re hosting a NASCAR event in Grant Park — I don’t think it’s doable,” Reilly said.
Did the mayor’s office or the city’s Department of Special Events and Cultural Affairs consider any of this?
Hard to tell. And statement from the department, nicknamed DCASE, is no help:
“Taste of Chicago is a beloved summertime tradition that is indeed happening this year. We are finalizing details for 2023 and will be announcing dates and locations for DCASE’s signature summer events in the coming weeks.”
Reilly and Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) want the nonprofit corporation that oversees Navy Pier and Polk Bros. Park to refuse to hold Taste of Chicago on NASCAR weekend, an act that could possibly force the city to move the culinary event to the fall.
Rescheduling Taste of Chicago would be a headache, but not as big as the one that would be caused by holding the two massively attended events on the same weekend, within six blocks of each other.
Your move, Mayor Lightfoot
The events — if they happen as planned — would occur two months after a new mayor is sworn in.
Given the short timetable, we encourage the City Council members who are willing to step in now to solve this tangle.
Reilly and Hopkins got their colleague, Special Events and Cultural Affairs Committee Chair Nick Sposato (38th), to hold the city’s annual special events ordinance in committee, which would delay the Taste’s scheduling.
Sposato said he supports rescheduling Taste, but doesn’t know if that’s possible.
“There’s a lot to do logistically,” he said.
We’re hoping the aldermanic maneuver urges Lightfoot — who caused this jam in the first place by double-booking the city’s premiere park like it was a suburban hotel conference room — to do the right thing.
Fix this problem before she leaves office.
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