Roadside Recognition Edging Steadily Upward

Who in the world is Edmund J. Russ? And why was an interchange on the Artesia Freeway named after him?

How about Robert E. McClure? What noble deeds earned him the distinction of being identified with the tunnel that shoots motorists from the gloom of the Santa Monica Freeway to the glory of Pacific Coast Highway?

If such questions have ever penetrated your behind-the-wheel reverie, be forewarned: A recent string of honorary dedications by the Legislature is about to make driving the state’s 15,000 miles of highways even more of a trivia pursuit.

During the 2001-02 legislative session, lawmakers gave roadside recognition to two dozen individuals, continuing a trend that has been edging steadily upward since the mid-1990s. The naming spree has led to conflicts over whether prime stretches of road can accommodate more than one honoree, as well as presaged a day when the state could conceivably run out of asphalt and concrete to christen.

“In the totality, there is still plenty,” said Randall Henry, a consultant to the Senate Transportation Committee. “But ... sometimes these dedications take up fairly large segments of well-traveled freeways, and those are the ones people want to use.”

That was the case earlier this year when the city of San Ramon wanted to have a section of Interstate 680 renamed the Thomas E. Burnett Jr. Memorial Highway. Burnett was a San Ramon resident who died aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania when several passengers struggled with hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001.

It turned out, though, that the proposed area overlapped part of Interstate 680 that already had been named in 1998 for Donald D. Doyle, a Contra Costa County businessman who served in the Assembly for six years during the 1950s. Although Caltrans did not oppose the dual naming, members of the Senate Transportation Committee thought they should ask Doyle how he felt about it.

His answer: not good. “He was somewhat concerned, saying, ‘With all due respect, this was named for me,’ and ‘Is there something else the city could do,’ ” said Robert Oakes, press secretary to state Sen. Tom Torlakson (D-Antioch), sponsor of the measure that would have honored Burnett.

Because the Transportation Committee will not approve road dedications when there is opposition, Doyle’s concern proved enough to defeat Torlakson’s bill, Henry said. San Ramon officials, eager to honor Burnett before the first 9/11 anniversary, ended up naming a city park and a locally maintained freeway overpass in his memory.

In the past, legislators tried to prevent such clashes -- and to avoid cluttering up roadsides with too many signs -- by only naming highways after someone who was dead.

But it was an unwritten policy, and a change in committee leadership, combined with term limits, has led to a horde of highways recently being named for politicians who are still around to enjoy it, Henry said.

Since 1997, at least 10 freeways and highways have been named for living former Assembly and state Senate members. Legislators, in fact, were in such a rush last year to acknowledge retiring Sen. Jim Costa (D-Fresno) that it commandeered a resolution that would have named a portion of California 180 for a fallen firefighter and had the highway dedicated to Costa instead.

It is not hard to understand why memorial highways have flourished even though the state Department of Transportation, in 1968, issued a report saying “memorial names should be avoided,” a recommendation the Legislature ignored. In a place as car-obsessed as California, having a freeway segment or structure named in your honor might be the ultimate status symbol.

The process for getting a freeway or one of its structures named for someone is fairly simple. Proponents must persuade a lawmaker to sponsor a resolution, and the designee must be a person who has shown “extraordinary public service” or “some exemplary contribution to the public good.” The only other condition is a $5,000 payment from private sources to cover the cost of signs at either end of a newly named interchange, bridge or freeway. The resolutions are usually approved as a matter of course, without public hearings or debate, and do not require the governor’s signature to take effect, Henry said.

Although elected officials have undoubtedly snared a fair share of the four-lane flattery, they are not the only ones who have met the “extraordinary public service” criteria. Law-enforcement officers, especially those who worked for the California Highway Patrol, and other public safety workers killed in the line of duty most often take freeway naming honors.

Other recipients run the gamut, from entertainers (Sonny Bono, Gene Autry, James Dean) and athletes (Ted Williams, Archie Moore) to war heroes (Gunnery Sgt. John Basilone, Eugene A. Obregon) and civil rights pioneers. (Earlier this year, Rosa Parks lent her name to two roads, a stretch of Interstate 10 in Los Angeles and part of California 58.)

Many of the people for whom roads were named in the last few years are not so easily recognizable. But they have diversified the universe of honorees.

Until two years ago, for instance, there were hardly any freeway sections named for women, and none in Southern California. Now there are several, including the Alice Livingston Memorial Overcrossing, named for the Assembly Transportation Committee’s longtime secretary; the Donna DeNeal Bridge, which recognizes a Caltrans equipment operator who was killed while repairing a damaged sign; and the Dr. June McCarroll Memorial Freeway, a segment of Interstate 10 near Indio named for an early 20th century physician who pushed for the painting of centerlines to promote safer roads.

Ethnic minority groups also have been able to celebrate their leaders through honorary namings. Early next year, Southern California’s Korean American community will find the interchange between the Santa Monica Freeway and the Harbor Freeway named for Dosan Ahn Chang Ho, a Korean immigrant who helped organize the community before World War I.

In an era in which so many sports stadiums have a commercial tie-in, it is comforting to know that a person can achieve interstate immortality on the strength of his or her character. Martin Luther King Jr., for whom San Diego County’s California 94 is named, probably would approve of that.

(In case you were wondering: Edmund J. Russ got his interchange for chairing a state task force that worked on completing the Artesia Freeway. Robert E. McClure was editor and publisher of the Santa Monica Evening Outlook, a delegate to the 1964 Republican presidential convention and a member of the state Highway Commission.)

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