The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it.
The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday at noon.
Today’s question:
QUESTION: Many streets, highways and bridges in the Bay Area have been named after celebrities and politicians. Do you think this is a waste of time and tax dollars, or do you think it’s a good thing to do?
Talk about it.
26 comments
I think it’s swell as long as they don’t change existing names. Spend the money one time.
I think “The Mark Desaulnier Sanitary Landfill” has a certain ring to it.
Very appropriate, I love it.
I second that !
What a childish remark. Also quite rude and uncalled for. Why turn a great topic into a pig sty?
Think this question was asked less/more that a year ago.(?)
Wouldn’t mind if it was a city streets,….but not neighborhood streets.
But for a “new” streets only,….changing a street name is not needed.
Obama has a street going to a Sewer Farm named after him.
Oh Wizard, that was a very uneducated, ignorant, nasty, hateful, ugly comment.
If I’m not mistaken, they renamed army Street in San Francisco at one time which I thought was a tragedy. There’s a history to the names that are there whether they realize it or not. And in in certain respects they are obliterating history.
It’s a longstanding California tradition going back to the earliest freeways, which had names instead of numbers. That’s also why Southern Californians say “the 5” instead of just 5, in the early days you called freeways by name i.e. “take the Santa Monica freeway” so when route numbers were introduced everyone treated them like the proper names they were used to!
Good to know, thanks for that! I’m from Southern California but moved up her prior to being able to drive.
It’s true. I spent my first 19 years in the LA area before moving to Contra Costa and whenever I mentioned the Orange, Foothill, or Hollywood Freeways, all I got was blank stares. So, I’d say 57, 210, and 101 and still get blank stares. Okay, they knew the 101.
Only after they have passed away.
Street names act as a telltale sign of a community’s values at a given time, and as such attribute historical significance that goes beyond the name. When they occur, street name changes should reflect only local values. They should not be memorials, or a record of which CHP officer was killed on a particular stretch of highway, and they should not be a “Thank you” to a State politician for their decades of exemplary employment. If a street name is changed to reflect a local personality that significantly re-shaped a community’s positive growth and development for the better over the course of their lifetime, I have no problem with that. Implementing a name change on a community for a State politician is an imposition, and reflects the State’s attitude that the State is more powerful than the community, with which I disagree.
Waste of tax payer dollars. I am against it.
Well, as you know I’ve often grumbled about highways and buildings named after dead people. Like roadside memorials this occurs mostly from emotion by folks close to the deceased, not his contribution to the larger society. These names are meaningless to everybody living in the present.
Sorry but politician and exemplary employment is an oxymoron.
How about we name the Merced to Bakersfield $12.8 Billion Choo Choo Train project “The Brown & Newsom Folly”. Hey, 2028 is just around the corner……
I will put my money on The Reading, The B & O, The Pennsylvania, and The Short Line. At least in Monopoly you get to pass Go and collect $200!
I just noticed 680 at WC has a sign that says Daniel Boatwright Freeway. This guy just escaped a federal indictment for a deal on a shopping center that he got a piece of. Not my idea of an upright leader.
The late Rev. Smith would be proud of You for the reference to Boatwright and Countrywood.
Politicians and celebrities could end up having embarrassing things come to light – like Bill Cosby for example. Name streets after heroes who are no longer with us. Name one after Neal Peart, and another after Richard Feynman. Another after Harriet Tubman, and one after Jonas Salk. There is a rich wealth of people who could be honored in such a way, and it would also reacquaint younger people with some of the great feats and discoveries of the past.
My preference is for the street names to indicate an area’s original prominent residents (I.e. GALINDO), what feature is near where it is located (Library Avenue, Kirker Pass, etc.), or else to what area it leads (Clayton Road, Cowell Road, etc.).
So I still cross the Benicia Bridge and the Antioch Bridge; and I fly into Orange County Airport, Washington National Airport, etc.. I might go up to Trinity Lake, for instance, even though on a map it is now named after a senator.
And it gives me the heebie-jeebies that in Concord, East Street is west of West Street! Gaaaahhhhhhhggggghhh!
The Antioch Bridge is actually the State Senator John Nejedly Bridge, the newer Benicia Bridge is named for Miller the 1st. and Trinity Lake is named for U.S, Senator Clair Engle, who died in 1964,,,,Gov. Brown the 1st named JFK’s press secretary Pierre Salinger to be Engle’s replacement , and He was defeated in Nov. 1964 by song and dance 40’s movie star George Murphy….thankfully nothing has been named for those two guys!
A former president is not a celebrity.
It’s a great idea until the celebrity or politician pulls a Weinstein or Cosby!
Keep it generic and you won’t have to change it.
I think we should sell street names to the highest bidder and re-new them every 12 years and use the money to close backlog of untested rape kits, research for fast acting bio-degradable fishing nets, and a Spay/neuter program for people who think you get corona viruses from beer. And mix in some Finnish NHL player names to keep it fun. 🏒
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