Simi Valley Freeway Renamed After Reagan : Transportation: State Senate votes 38 to 0 to honor the ex-President. Caltrans will install signs once the estimated $4,000 cost is raised privately.

With fond words for the nation’s 40th President, the state Senate on Monday overwhelmingly approved designating the Simi Valley Freeway as the Ronald Reagan Freeway.

On the first day of the 1995-96 legislative session, the Senate voted 38 to 0 to re-christen the entire length of the freeway in honor of the two-term President from California.

The state Department of Transportation will begin installing signs at each end of the freeway as soon as money is raised from private sources; the state does not pay to rename freeways after private individuals. The estimated cost is $4,000.

State Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley), a co-author of the resolution along with state Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), urged colleagues to approve it in part because the freeway leads to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library near Simi Valley.

“I think it’s only appropriate that with the Reagan library in the area, right at the end of the 118 freeway, it would be named for Ronald Reagan,” Wright said.

A more impassioned plea came from state Sen. Henry J. Mello (D-Watsonville), who praised the 83-year-old Reagan for displaying “great courage” in recently disclosing publicly that he suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.

“The Reagan freeway designation is really appropriate,” Mello said. “But more important is to give recognition because he had the courage not to hide his disease.”

Mello said Reagan’s candid statements in an open letter addressed to “my fellow Americans” will help remove the stigma for other memory-loss sufferers.

Richard Smith, director of the presidential library, said the freeway designation is a fitting honor for Reagan, who inspires many library visitors with “the sense that the Reagan years were the last golden age in the Golden State.”

“One of his great attributes was to foster a sense of hope,” said Smith, interpreting the Legislature’s designation as proof that public nostalgia for the Republican President is more than just a passing fancy.

Earlier this year, the Assembly passed a similar resolution by Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) and backed by a lengthy bipartisan list of co-authors.