Bill Daley Wants To Rename Dan Ryan Expressway After Barack Obama

CHICAGO — Chicago mayoral candidate Bill Daley has proposed re-naming the Dan Ryan Expressway after former President Barack Obama. Daley called on state lawmakers to change the name by next year.

“Our Chicago expressways are named for towering figures in our history: Kennedy, Eisenhower, Stevenson,” Daley said in a media release. “Renaming the highway for President Obama will be a daily reminder for all of us that America’s first African-American president was shaped by Chicago. We were part of history.”

Daley was Obama's chief of staff in 2011, but left after a year in the position.

A section of Interstate 55 — that runs south from the Tri-State Tollway to mile marker 202 — is already named after Obama. The Illinois legislature passed the bill to re-name the 80-mile stretch the Barack Obama Presidential Expressway in 2017.

There are already two Chicago highways named after former Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.

The Dan Ryan Expressway was named after Dan Ryan Jr., president of the Cook County Board from 1954 to 1961. Daley's proposal has upset some of Ryan's descendants, the Chicago Tribune reported.

“I was very surprised,” Ryan III, 69, told the Tribune. “I couldn’t figure out why he wanted to do it, considering his father was the one who named the expressway after my grandfather."

Another highway was also recently named for Obama — the 134 Freeway in California, located between Glendale and Pasadena.

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