REPLACEMENT BRIDGE WILL SOON GET A NAME
New $1.46B span will likely become Long Beach International Gateway after survey of residents
Long Beach’s “bridge to everywhere” has finally found its name.
The Gerald Desmond Replacement Bridge will likely become the Long Beach International Gateway after voters in a survey earlier this month favored that moniker over two others, Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell and state Sen. Lena Gonzalez, both Democrats representing the city, announced on Monday.
The other choices were International Gateway and Long Beach Transpacific.
About 54% of the 2,780 voters favored the Long Beach International Gateway Bridge.
“I am very thankful for all the input we received from our community to choose a name for the new Long Beach
bridge,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “This iconic state landmark will connect us to the rest of the world for decades to come, and it is now time to formalize its name.”
O’Donnell and Gonzalez have introduced a bill in the state Legislature to officially name the bridge, they said in their announcement. The bridge, which opened in October, is part of the state highway system and is overseen by Caltrans, so even though it is in Long Beach, the Legislature must approve the span’s name.
The timeline for approval has not yet been determined.
The state, though, will not pay for a new sign, according to the announcement.
It wasn’t clear how officials would find nonstate funds to pay for a new sign.
The project to replace the old Gerald Desmond Bridge, which became too low to serve the larger cargo ships of today and wore down from increasing truck traffic, began in 2013, with more than 350 massive concrete pilings providing the foundations for the monumental undertaking.
The $1.46 billion replacement bridge is the largest structure in Long Beach, with two towers standing 515 feet tall, casting a shadow over the original Gerald Desmond Bridge, which served the nation’s second-largest port for 52 years.
The bridge, spanning 2,000 feet, is intended to last 100 years and will require little maintenance thanks in part to special joints at each end of the main span.
The proposed name aligns with how city and Port of Long Beach officials have long described the bridge. Mayor Robert Garcia, who didn’t respond to a request for comment Monday, said during the bridge’s October grand opening, for example, that “it connects our port and the world to each other.”
The bridge, in fact, is the main connector to the Port of Long Beach, the secondbusiest in the nation — behind only the Port of Los Angeles — and is now the most iconic structure in one of California largest cities. It also connects Long Beach, via the Vincent Thomas Bridge, to San Pedro, the historic port town that is part of the city of Los Angeles.
“The community has spoken and they made a great choice,” O’Donnell said in a statement. “The name ‘Long Beach International Gateway Bridge’ appropriately signifies Long Beach as the gateway to the American economy.”
An estimated 60,000 vehicles traverse the new bridge daily. More than 15% of the nation’s imported cargo, valued at $170 billion, travels across it. And there’s not a congressional district in the country that doesn’t receive merchandise from containers that are processed through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
That led Port of Long Beach Executive Director Mario Cordero, who didn’t respond to a request for comment Monday, to previously dub the span the “bridge to everywhere.”
“It’s a great, iconic bridge,” Cordero said in October, “the ‘bridge to everywhere.’”