NASCAR and the Chicago traffic jam of 2023

For the first time ever, on the weekend before Independence Day, the city of Chicago hosted a NASCAR street race – yes, in downtown Chicago, one of the best known business, shopping and entertainment districts in the world.

This isn’t something that the voters chose consciously; it’s a decision made by the last city government, the office of the recently-defeated Mayor Lori Lightfoot.  Chicagoans have been referring to the event as Lightfoot’s last attack on the people of Chicago.

Events like this take weeks to set up, so driving barriers and temporary viewing stands have been erected, disrupting traffic for weeks.  Chicago traffic is always a challenge, even worse now than usual with a massive repaving project in process on the Kennedy Expressway (the highway connecting downtown Chicago with O’Hare Airport).  Summer traffic normally swells with tourists already; Chicago hardly needed the added snarl of extensive NASCAR road closures in one of the most congested areas in the country.