Call it a DMV? Chinatown gets office for driver and vehicle services
Illinois famously doesn’t have a DMV, or Department of Motor Vehicles.
Residents for decades have applied for and renewed licenses and car registrations at driver services facilities run by the secretary of state’s office.
But at a ribbon-cutting Monday for Chinatown’s first drivers and motor vehicles facility, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias made it clear he wants to call it a DMV.
“I know folks online are having a lot of fun with it. We are having fun with it. We’re not saying Department of Motor Vehicles. This is Drivers and Motor Vehicles,” Giannoulias said.
Giannoulias shrugged off a question about whether all state driver services facilities will undergo the name change. But the new name was prominently displayed above the office at 2250 S. Canal St. in a large sign reading “Drivers and Motor Vehicles Facility.”
The office offers both driver and vehicle services from the same counter in a new “one-stop shop” model.
The Chinatown office will also offer services in Mandarin, Cantonese and Spanish.
Asked about the name change to DMV, Giannoulias said he doesn’t “spend too much time thinking about the name. I’m not creative or smart enough.”
But the name “driver services facilities” appears to be scrubbed from the secretary of state’s website in favor of references to DMVs.
The Chinatown office, open 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, allows residents to apply for or renew driver’s licenses, Real IDs and vehicle registration; apply for disability placards; join the organ donor registry and register to vote.
Ald. Nicole Lee (11th) thanked Giannoulias for fulfilling within a year a promise during his campaign to put an office in Chinatown.
“It’s an incredible signal of the importance of our growing community,” Lee said.