Despite efforts by Chicago city officials to curtail Mexican Independence Day caravans this year, the annual festivities prompted the city to implement sudden road closures downtown Saturday night. Many residents spent hours trying to get home.
“(It was) an epic fail like I’ve never seen in this town. Not Nascar, (n) not Lollapalooza, (n) nothing compared to how badly this was handled,” wrote Aaron Thompson, a 46-year-old River resident North, to Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, Sunday morning.
The Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications implemented rolling street closures and limited access to downtown beginning around 8 p.m. to “relieve traffic congestion,” according to OEMC’s account on social platform X.
After spending hours on the road, Thompson was denied access to his residential street and re-routed several times.
Another Chicago resident, Gregg Roloff, tweeted that he was forced to sleep in his car in the western suburbs last Saturday night after sitting in hours of traffic and being denied entry into the city at several points.
This comes after city officials hoped to discourage caravans this year by imposing sanctions The Scream Festival in Grant Park for the first time in over a decade.
But last night Thompson said the problem wasn’t the caravans, it was the police.
“They treated the residents of the city like trash, like we didn’t belong,” he told the Tribune. In a sea of dozens of overloaded cars, he said he saw only a handful decorated for the holidays.
The Office of Emergency Management and police countered that the city announced possible street closures and access points for those who live and work within the closure area, citing X posts from Wednesday and Friday.
The streets were reopened just after two o’clock on Sunday and public transport was not affected.
Mexican Independence Day festivities continue through Monday night, making more festivity-related traffic impacts possible.
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