BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SCR 79
Page 1
Date of Hearing: June 18, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION
Bonnie Lowenthal, Chair
SCR 79 (Lieu) - As Amended: May 1, 2012
SENATE VOTE : 33-0
SUBJECT : State Route 1
SUMMARY : Designates a bridge on State Route (SR) 1 as the
Honorable Jenny Oropeza Memorial Overcrossing. Specifically,
this bill :
1)Recounts the life and career of Jenny Oropeza, a California
State legislator who facilitated the funding and construction
of a critical bridge on SR 1 as part of the Alameda Corridor
transportation project.
2)Designates the segment of SR 1 that runs between Coil Street
and the east side of the main entrance to the Tesoro Refinery,
in the community of Wilmington, as the Honorable Jenny Oropeza
Memorial Overcrossing.
3)Requests the Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to
determine the cost of appropriate signs consistent with the
signing requirements for the state highway system showing this
special designation and, upon receiving donations from
nonstate sources sufficient to cover the cost, to erect those
signs.
EXISTING LAW : Assigns Caltrans the responsibility of operating
and maintaining state highways. This includes the installation
and maintenance of highway signs.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown. This bill was withdrawn from the
Senate Appropriations Committee pursuant to Senate Bill 28.8.
COMMENTS : Jenny Oropeza was active in her community and was
elected to the Long Beach Unified School District Board of
Education, the Long Beach City Council, the California State
Assembly, and finally to the California State Senate. During
her time as a member of the California Legislature, Jenny
Oropeza was a champion for public transportation (including
serving almost three years as the chair of the Assembly
SCR 79
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Transportation Committee), health care, education, clean air,
equality, and prevention of cancer.
Shortly after taking office in 2000, then-Assembly Member
Oropeza, became aware that the Alameda Corridor would open in
2002 and all the planned bridges, designed to prevent cars from
having to wait for trains to pass at street level, would be
completed, except the bridge on SR 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) in
the community of Wilmington, the busiest route along the Alameda
Corridor. At the time, SR 1 bisected the Equilon Refinery and
was therefore the most complicated and expensive bridge to
build. Furthermore, there was not enough funding available to
complete the bridge on SR 1. Former Assembly Member Oropeza
brought together the interested parties, including Caltrans, the
Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority, the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority, the Equilon Refinery, the Union
Pacific Railroad, and the City of Los Angeles to solve this
problem and was able to help facilitate $107 million in funding
from a combination of sources which included state
transportation funds, state Proposition 116 bond funds, federal
demonstration funds, Metropolitan Transportation Authority
funds, and railroad funds. Former Assembly Member Oropeza was
also successful in her pursuit to have the long bridge built.
This design not only eliminated the train and car conflicts on
the Alameda Corridor, but also eliminated these same conflicts
on Alameda Street and the San Pedro Branch of the Union Pacific
Railroad.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
None on file
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Howard Posner / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093