CDOT voiced support for honoring DuSable, but officials privately oppose renaming LSD

In Biagi's prepared statement, she noted that Mayor Lori Lightfoot had said the day before that DuSable "played a critical role in Chicago's history and it is long overdue that we honor and recognize his important contributions to our city," and "This is not about a single statue, mural or street, it's about how we uplift the stories of all our city's diverse residents."

Speaking in her own words, Biagi said, "I want you know that I understand the great power of recognition in the naming of our civic spaces -- spaces that can reflect who we were, who we are, and who we might become. I understand that this is about more than changing street signs and addresses and that we have work to do as a city to honor the indelible contributions of Black Chicagoans, from our very founding as a city to the present day."

Biagi noted that the 17-miles stretch of highway is home to about 12,000 residences and over 100 buildings that currently have Lake Shore Drive addresses, adding that this would be the most significant street name change in Chicago's history, requiring considerable administrative work and resources. "This is not to say it cannot be figured out and carried out."

Biagi enumerated some of the hurdles to changing the name. CDOT would need to update all the city systems that depend on geo-location along the drive, which would require working with the Chicago Department of Assets, Information, and Services, plus discussions with the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, Police, and Fire on how to limit any impact on emergency response. In addition, departments like Planning and Development would need to update materials associated with planned developments and lakefront protection.

The commissioner also noted that the amount of labor and materials needed to replace hundreds of signs on Lake Shore Drive would be nothing to sneeze at. She didn't have a total cost figure, but promised to provide committee members with a “back of the envelope” estimate in the near future.

She also pointed out that there is currently no official distinction between "inner" and "outer" Lake Shore Drive, so renaming only the outer lanes would require "physical survey work for the legal description of a new street out of those lanes.  We have never done this before. Again, it does not mean it cannot be done, but that there is quite a bit of legal and administrative work to do to figure it out."

However, the emails Streetsblog acquired via a Freedom of Information Act request show that top CDOT officials don't actually want to do that work.

During an email discussion between CDOT brass on December 10 in preparation for the December 11 hearing, Biagi questioned whether Alderman Moore's proposal to rename only the outer lanes of the LSD was actually feasible. "[Moore's] characterization that we can just rename outer drive is incorrect, right? My understanding from the call this morning is that we can’t bifurcate it."

A few days after the December 11 hearing, on December 14 the Chicago Sun-Times published an editorial arguing "Rather than have aldermen suggest street renaming in an ad hoc fashion as is the case with DuSable, there must be a more formalized and predictable process and criteria by which the recommendation for renaming streets is made."