Wrigleyville residents ordered to move their cars off streets

Wrigleyville residents without private garages will be required to move their cars off the streets surrounding Wrigley Field for the entire upcoming weekend because of extraordinary security measures tied to the Cubs’ first World Series appearance in 71 years.

From noon Friday until 4 a.m. Monday, there will be no parking on the following streets:

• Clark from School/Aldine to Irving
• Sheffield from Roscoe to Irving Park
• Addison from Halsted to Southport on both sides of the street and from Southport to Ashland on the north side of the street only
• Racine from Roscoe to Clark
• Patterson, Waveland, Eddy, Cornelia and Newport from Racine to Clark
• Clifton, Kenmore and Seminary between Grace and Waveland
• Grace and Waveland from Clark to Wilton
• Inner Lake Shore Drive on the East Side between Belmont and Addison
• Waveland on the South Side of the street between Fremont and Halsted. That parking ban will remain in effect from 7 a.m. to 5 pm. Friday.

Local Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) acknowledged that the extraordinary parking restrictions will be a major inconvenience for local residents and those from the neighboring 46th Ward.

They apply even to those residents who have purchased residential permit parking stickers that would normally give them the right to park on local streets where parking is otherwise restricted.

And just what are those residents supposed to do with their cars?

“They’re gonna have to move them out [or] they’ll be towed. If they do not have their own garage, they’re gonna have to take it basically out a mile away. Out of the neighborhood,” Tunney said.

“This is a century event. … This is police. This is Homeland Security. This is not something that, certainly I would want to wish on my residents. … When you have Homeland Security and public safety, it comes first. We’ve had a set of restrictions up until this weekend that were manageable and safe. But there is a whole different level for this weekend.”

Sun-Times file photo

If residents are forced to park their cars a mile away, how are they supposed to get home?

“Uh, public transit, walk, Uber. What I’m trying to tell you is, get the word out. Normally, it’s a 24-hour notice. Well, in our neighborhood, once people get a parking spot, they’re there for the weekend. [They say], ‘I’ll be good,’” Tunney said.

Tunney advised anyone living within three or four blocks of Wrigley who is parking on the street to go out and check the street signs.

Chances are, they are impacted by the “extreme parking measures” that will remain in effect through Monday morning as part of the expanding Wrigley security bubble.

“For the first round, we had a series of parking [restrictions]. But, this has gotten to be much bigger. There’s a potential between my ward and Cappleman’s, there’s like 30 percent of our residential streets are going to be no parking for the whole weekend,” Tunney said.

“We don’t have parking excess. We don’t have any place to park. So we’re gonna be going door-to-door on the buildings. The red-and-white signs are up. But that doesn’t do a heckuva lot of good … If you live around the ballpark, you’ve got to pay attention because these restrictions are first-time ever restrictions.”

Since the city is requiring residents to move their cars off the street, Tunney was asked why the city doesn’t also make available school and other city-owned parking lots as a temporary alternative.

“Well, in our neighborhood, the school lots are being used for Cubs parking,” he said.

“Maybe we can get there. But, we’ve got 24 hours. I want to make sure we get as many” people informed as possible.

The last time in recent memory that residents were ordered to move their cars off the street in such a broad area was during the Blizzard of 1979 that buried then-Mayor Michael Bilandic.

Bilandic demanded that residents move their cars off the streets to city-designated lots so city snow plows could get through. But, the city failed to remove the mountains of snow from those lots.

Newspapers at the time showed photos of the lots under the headline, “Mayor Bilandic Says You Should Park Here.”

As for his “century event” remark, Tunney stressed that it should not be misconstrued.

It was a reference to the Cubs’ past futility — the 108-year wait for a World Series title that stands as the longest drought in the history of professional sports. It was not intended as a future prediction.

“The team is young enough for there to be a nice run for a few years,” he said.