City Council Public Safety chair wants details of Democratic Convention transportation plan

With the Democratic National Convention just three months away, an influential City Council member is demanding answers about how convention delegates will be shuttled around the city and what impact that will have on people who live and work in Chicago.

Public Safety Committee Chair Brian Hopkins (2^nd) plans to hold City Council hearings to find out how many CTA buses will be shuttling delegates to and from the United Center, whether dedicated bus lanes will be used and whether a transit agency that has struggled to find enough drivers to meet its daily schedule will be able to recruit enough employees without "adjusting service."

With many delegates opting to take Uber and Lyft to and from the United Center, Hopkins wants a guarantee that the "ride-share function will be organized" instead of "letting it happen organically."

"You can’t just let everybody pick their own ride-share agency, use the app and not have control over that. That creates a traffic nightmare. It doesn’t help people who are not familiar with the city," Hopkins told the Sun-Times.

"If you get dropped off on the wrong side of McCormick Place, you’ve got a really long walk to get to where you need to be. It’s much better to have the ride-share companies sit down with convention planners and have designated pick-up and drop-off sites and have places where drivers can stage so you don’t have surge-pricing kicking in."

Erica Schroeder, a spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Transportation, had no immediate response to Hopkins’ logistical questions.

She noted that convention planning is a “collaborative process” between the CTA, the U.S. Secret Service and multiple city agencies, including the Chicago Police Department, the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, CDOT and Streets and Sanitation.

In 1996, 150 CTA buses were made available to whisk convention delegates from downtown hotels to the United Center along dedicated bus lanes.

Fewer buses are likely to be needed this time because of the advent of ride-sharing.

But Hopkins said it nevertheless makes sense to duplicate those dedicated bus lanes while using the little-known McCormick Place busway — dubbed “the Bat Cave” by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel — to minimize traffic jams along Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Ave.

“That’s a security issue. You can’t just have random private vehicles down there,” Hopkins said.

Yet another question is whether there will be a “central coordinated function to make adjustments” on the fly in the likely event that protesters like those who have descended on college campuses demanding an end to the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza shut down major streets.

“We saw what happened at O’Hare a few weeks ago, and there’s been some chatter on social media. Some of the protest groups want to make their point by obstructing public roadways and shutting them down for a period of time," he said.

"We’re gonna try to stop that from happening. But, if it happens, what’s the `Plan B’? Who’s in charge of arranging for detours and re-routes in the event that protest activity shuts down a bus way?"

If mass arrests become necessary, Hopkins wants to know where protesters will be detained and whether more buses will be required for that. He wants assurances that Chicago police officers will safely execute a mass arrest while “preventing civil unrest from blossoming into a full-scale riot," as they did during the 2012 NATO Summit.

“If we can ... allow people to exercise their right to protest without breaking the law and impose consequences on them when they do break the law, I’ll consider that a success,” he said.

Mayor Brandon Johnson emerged from the protest movement, and Hopkins said Johnson “still has the heart of an activist so his sympathies will lie with the protesters." But the mayor also “understands that allowing the convention to descend into chaos and anarchy would undermine” President Joe Biden’s re-election chances.

“He simply can’t let that happen on his watch. He’ll do what needs to be done,” Hopkins said.

Ronnie Reese, the mayor’s communications director, stressed that “responsible protests” will be allowed, but protest that “threaten safety or disrupt life” in Chicago will not be allowed.

Hopkins spent the 1996 Democratic National Convention overseeing a fleet of 25 donated SUV’s made available to shuttle special guests “personally curated” by then-President Bill Clinton and then-First Lady Hillary Clinton from the Sheraton Chicago Hotel to the United Center and other events around the city.

"It was a pretty high-level job for, then, a young kid just starting out. It was a lot of fun. I loved every minute of it,” Hopkins recalled.

“Everything was really well-organized and well-planned down to the last detail and it started much earlier. We’re not there yet with this convention. I’m a little concerned that we’re getting a late start.”