While I eat my lunch, I’d like to take a few minutes to wax rhapsodic about the naming of highways. When the freeway system was first established, freeways were often named for their eventual location. The San Diego Freeway went to San Diego. The Santa Monica Freeway to Santa Monica. The San Bernadino Freeway to San Bernadino. The Nimitz Freeway to… uh… Nimitz. My naming page notes the following:
Caltrans names highways for a variety of reasons, and the policy differed by Caltrans district. In District 7 (Los Angeles), highways were originally named based on their ultimate designation. In District 4, they were often named after people, but some acquired names through local usage. To address this, in 1962, Senate Concurrent Resolution 8 requested a study and report regarding the naming of freeways, highways, and expressways. The report made recommendations and suggested criteria for naming highways and freeways in the State Highway system. In response to the report, the legislature in 1963 (SCR 12) placed a moratorium on assigning further highway names until there was more study. In 1967, subsequent legislation directed Caltrans to update and expand the report. Caltrans did, and recommended the following:
- Freeway naming should be vested in a single authority: the Highway Commission.
- Naming should be provided on the basis of motorists’ needs.
- Geographical or historical names are most suitable.
- Terminal or destination names are not suitable.
- Memorial names should be avoided.
- A single name shall apply to the entire length of a route between logical points.
- Names should be limited to a maximum of twelve letters not including the word “Freeway”
These were actually reasonable standards, and served the travelling public. But today? It’s a free-for-all out there. For at least the last 15 years the state legislature has seemingly decided that naming a section of a highway or a bridge after someone makes an impressive resolution–and so the names have proliferated. Just looking at the current year (focus on the ACRs and the SCRs), we have resolutions proposing names for small stretches of a freeway, bridges, sometime just one direction on a bridge, and even a single exit of a freeway. And who are we naming these things after? It runs the full range, from well-known politicians to disgraced politicians, from well-known groups to lesser-known ones, from civic leaders to police officers. The latter, in fact, is the most common. If you are a peace officer (CHP, Sheriff, Police) or soldier and someone can convince your legislator, you can get a small stretch of state highway named after you.
I think this is bad.
I’m not saying that these people shouldn’t be honored (well, some of the politicians shouldn’t be honored). It’s rather that you don’t honor people by just putting their name on a sign by the side of the road. Most of these people earned their honor from their deeds. You need to remember their deeds, and tell their story to honor them. Roadside naming doesn’t do that. Every day I go through the Sadao S. Munemori Memorial Freeway Interchange. How many of the other millions of drivers going through that interchange know who Mr. Munimori was, and how what he did that was so brave? The name doesn’t preserve his memory; in fact, it cheapens the memory (how many people know, for example, that Bolton Hall in La Canada was named after Mr. Hall, not Mr. Bolton). And Mr. Munimori was deserving. Many of the freeways, highways, structures and other appurtenances are named after peace officers cut down before they could make their mark by a drunk driver or an agressive driver. No one ever learns their story; my highway pages and the dusty resolution volumes at the state capitol are the only record. Naming something after someone is a poor echo of a life.
They also don’t serve the driving public. Seeing a name change every mile, or at every bridge and intersection makes those names meaningless. A segment of road has to many names to make that name the reference; the public devolves to using the highway number or the traditional name for the entire highway. Yet again, the purpose of remembrance is lost.
Further, although the resolutions all state that the costs of the signs must be paid for by donations, they aren’t free. There is the time that these resolutions take from the legislators and their staff: research time, committee time, vote time. There is the time for the calligraphy of the parchment. There is the cost of ceremonies. Ultimately, the taxpayer pays for this time, in a state that can little afford governmental waste. More importantly, this lost time is a distraction that prevents those we elect from doing the actual jobs we elect them to do: solving the state’s problems.
These naming resolutions benefit only the legislator that introduces them by making them look to be doing good. They may make a family or organization feel good in the short term; in the long term, they disrespect the memory of the person honored. Alas, like pork and earmarks, they are difficult to get rid of.
There. I feel better for getting that off of my chest.
P.S.: I’m thinking of resurrecting the “rant meme” to try to bring some life back to LJ. Opinions?
