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27-617: Rainbow tunnel may refer to: The Waldo Tunnel in Marin County, California The Light Tunnel in the McNamara Terminal at the Detroit Metro Airport Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Rainbow Tunnel . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

54-577: A Task Force Committee on Transportation to study the state transportation system and recommend major reforms. One of the proposals of the task force was the creation of a State Transportation Board as a permanent advisory board on state transportation policy; the board would later merge into the California Transportation Commission in 1978. In September 1971, the State Transportation Board proposed

81-681: A building pad for the Shelter Point office complex. The tunnel is featured in the Clint Eastwood film Dirty Harry and the Humphrey Bogart film Dark Passage . The honking of horns in the tunnel, often done deliberately for the sake of hearing the echoes, was the inspiration for harmonicist Bruce "Creeper" Kurnow's composition "Honk If You Love Harmonica." In the film Bicentennial Man (starring Robin Williams),

108-551: A futuristic view of a relocated highway bypasses the historic Waldo Grade. At the beginning of the 2015 Pixar film Inside Out , the main character's family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco. Their first view of the Golden Gate Bridge - and the film's title card - appear as they emerge from the Robin Williams Tunnel. CalTrans The California Department of Transportation ( Caltrans )

135-527: A new mission statement: "Provide a safe, sustainable, integrated and efficient transportation system to enhance California's economy and livability." The earliest predecessor of Caltrans was the Bureau of Highways, which was created by the California Legislature and signed into law by Governor James Budd in 1895. This agency consisted of three commissioners who were charged with analyzing

162-751: Is an executive department of the U.S. state of California . The department is part of the cabinet -level California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA). Caltrans is headquartered in Sacramento . Caltrans manages the state's highway system , which includes the California Freeway and Expressway System , supports public transportation systems throughout the state and provides funding and oversight for three state-supported Amtrak intercity rail routes ( Capitol Corridor , Pacific Surfliner and San Joaquins ) which are collectively branded as Amtrak California . In 2015, Caltrans released

189-715: The California State Assembly in April 2015 on a vote of 77–0, and the State Senate in June 2015 on a vote of 37–0. The official sign was installed in 2016. As San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge are hidden from the northern approach of US 101/SR 1 by hills, automobile travelers heading south along this route get their first views of the city and its iconic bridge upon exiting

216-673: The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 for the construction of its portion of the Interstate Highway System . Over the next two decades after Collier-Burns, the state "embarked on a massive highway construction program" in which nearly all of the now-extant state highway system was either constructed or upgraded. In hindsight, the period from 1940 to 1969 can be characterized as the "Golden Age" of California's state highway construction program. The history of Caltrans and its predecessor agencies during

243-772: The National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act forced Caltrans to devote significant time, money, people, and other resources to confronting issues such as "air and water quality, hazardous waste, archaeology, historic preservation, and noise abatement." The devastating 1971 San Fernando earthquake compelled the agency to recognize that its existing design standards had not adequately accounted for earthquake stress and that numerous existing structures needed expensive seismic retrofitting . Maintenance and construction costs grew at twice

270-638: The Rainbow Tunnel . After the death of actor and comedian Robin Williams in 2014, a petition was started on change.org to rename the Waldo Tunnel as the Robin Williams Tunnel, because Williams, a longtime resident of Marin County, is credited with leading San Francisco's comedy renaissance. A bill submitted by California Assemblyman Marc Levine after consulting with Williams' family passed

297-628: The Waldo Tunnel ) is located at the highest elevation on US 101/SR 1 along the Waldo Grade. The first bore of the tunnel was completed in 1937 and the second in 1954, with the Waldo Sidehill Viaducts . The archways at the south-facing ends of the bores were painted in rainbows after the lobbying by a Caltrans employee, Robert Halligan , and for this reason the tunnel is sometimes unofficially referred to as

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324-403: The 1970s, as its institutional focus shifted from highway construction to highway maintenance. The agency was forced to contend with declining revenues, increasing construction and maintenance costs (especially the skyrocketing cost of maintaining the vast highway system built over the past three prior decades), widespread freeway revolts , and new environmental laws . In 1970, the enactment of

351-650: The 20th century was marked by many firsts. It was one of the first agencies in the United States to paint centerlines on highways statewide; the first to build a freeway west of the Mississippi River ; the first to build a four-level stack interchange ; the first to develop and deploy non-reflective raised pavement markers, better known as Botts' dots ; and one of the first to implement dedicated freeway-to-freeway connector ramps for high-occupancy vehicle lanes . In 1967, Governor Ronald Reagan formed

378-631: The Department of Engineering into the Department of Public Works, which continued to have a Division of Highways. That same year, three additional divisions (now districts) were created, in Stockton, Bishop, and San Bernardino. In 1933, the state legislature enacted an amendment to the State Highway Classification Act of 1927, which added over 6,700 miles of county roads to the state highway system. To help manage all

405-441: The Department of Transportation, of which the most important was the Department of Public Works and its Division of Highways. The California Department of Transportation began official operations on July 1, 1973. The new agency was organized into six divisions: Highways, Mass Transportation, Aeronautics, Transportation Planning, Legal, and Administrative Services. Caltrans went through a difficult period of transformation during

432-454: The State of California into 12 districts, supervised by district offices. Most districts cover multiple counties ; District 12 ( Orange County ) is the only district with one county. The largest districts by population are District 4 ( San Francisco Bay Area ) and District 7 ( Los Angeles and Ventura counties). Like many state agencies, Caltrans maintains its headquarters in Sacramento , which

459-765: The additional work created by this massive expansion, an eleventh district office was founded that year in San Diego. The enactment of the Collier–Burns Highway Act of 1947 after "a lengthy and bitter legislative battle" was a watershed moment in Caltrans history. The act "placed California highway's program on a sound financial basis" by doubling vehicle registration fees and raising gasoline and diesel fuel taxes from 3 cents to 4.5 cents per gallon. All these taxes were again raised further in 1953 and 1963. The state also obtained extensive federal funding from

486-448: The commissioners submitted their report to the governor on November 25, 1896, the legislature replaced the Bureau with the Department of Highways. Due to the state's weak fiscal condition and corrupt politics, little progress was made until 1907, when the legislature replaced the Department of Highways with the Department of Engineering, within which there was a Division of Highways. California voters approved an $ 18 million bond issue for

513-492: The construction of a state highway system in 1910, and the first California Highway Commission was convened in 1911. On August 7, 1912, the department broke ground on its first construction project, the section of El Camino Real between South San Francisco and Burlingame , which later became part of California State Route 82 . The year 1912 also saw the founding of the Transportation Laboratory and

540-464: The creation of a state department of transportation charged with responsibility "for performing and integrating transportation planning for all modes ." Governor Reagan mentioned this proposal in his 1972 State of the State address , and Assemblyman Wadie P. Deddeh introduced Assembly Bill 69 to that effect, which was duly passed by the state legislature and signed into law by Reagan later that same year. AB 69 merged three existing departments to create

567-488: The creation of seven administrative divisions, which are the predecessors of the 12 district offices in use as of 2018 . The original seven division headquarters were located in: In 1913, the California State Legislature began requiring vehicle registration and allocated the resulting funds to support regular highway maintenance, which began the next year. In 1921, the state legislature turned

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594-481: The freeway at about 9:35pm on January 5, in fill material that had been stable since highway construction in 1953. The slide first carried away a house on Sausalito Boulevard, and then destroyed a house below it at 85 Crescent Avenue, killing resident Sally Baum. Three hundred residents were evacuated to a Red Cross shelter. A crack developed in the roadway and, concerned that the highway might fail, CalTrans engineers closed all northbound lanes for twelve days while

621-481: The inflation rate in this era of high inflation; the reluctance of one governor after another to raise fuel taxes in accordance with inflation meant that California ranked dead last in the United States in per capita transportation spending by 1983. During the 1980s and 1990s, Caltrans concentrated on "the upgrading, rehabilitation, and maintenance of the existing system," plus occasional gap closure and realignment projects. For administrative purposes, Caltrans divides

648-537: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rainbow_Tunnel&oldid=732318714 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Waldo Tunnel A tunnel officially known as the Robin Williams Tunnel (previously and formally referred to as

675-696: The road was reinforced with vertical pilings. The closure cut Marin County off from the San Francisco Peninsula . Thousands of Marin County residents were stranded in San Francisco who could not figure out how to get to Marin by using the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge I-580 or the bus lines that serve Marin from the East Bay. Some of the earth from the landslide was later transported to Mill Valley to create

702-411: The roads of the state and making recommendations for their improvement. At the time, there was no state highway system, since roads were purely a local responsibility. California's roads consisted of crude dirt roads maintained by county governments, as well as some paved streets in certain cities, and this ad hoc system was no longer adequate for the needs of the state's rapidly growing population. After

729-542: The tunnel's southbound bore. On January 4–5, 1982, the freeway was completely closed for 24 hours as a result of two landslides on the Waldo Grade caused by a severe storm in the San Francisco Bay area, and partially closed for nearly two weeks. The first landslide was on January 4, with rock, mud and trees falling onto the highway blocking the southbound lanes and two of the northbound lanes. A second debris avalanche began about 50 feet (15 m) below

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