Renaming streets creates diversity in a similar way that celebrities wearing red ribbons have cured AIDS.

Amy, it's not CREATING diversity, it's RECOGNIZING diversity. Diagram the sentence.

I was going to recommend Going St. be BJ and the Bear Blvd (BJBB)

Yes, New Seasons will be doing the recognizing. Of the diversity "that this new intersection would create."

So again, how does an intersection of new street names create diversity?

Interesting comment that Cesar Chavez spent time in Oregon in the forests. I didn't know that.

However, growing up just down the road from Mount Angel, I do remember they had a small college named for him there for a few years: Colegio Cesar Chavez. Noble, sincere experiment. Damn shame it didn't succeed. I think there's something about it on Wikipedia. Was viewed with a hint of suspicion by many of us white local yokels, as I recall.

FWIW, I think if someone really wants to honor Sr. Chavez's memory, maybe a school or something should be named in his honor. No more renaming of streets please; it's gotten a bit silly and faddish. And just because someone's name isn't connected to it doesn't mean it's not integral to Portland's history, even something as generic-sounding as Interstate, as I've elsewhere explained.

It seems like self-aggrandizement from a city with an inferiority complex. Sure, we've already got the obligatory MLK Blvd. and our fair share of high schools named after presidents. But just randomly naming streets after famous historical figures like Cesar Chavez and Rosa Parks is really odd. Why not add Harvey Milk Blvd. for SW Stark, Anne Frank Hwy. for Capitol Hwy., and St. Peter the Great Blvd. for SE Foster? Why not just start erecting monuments to famous world leaders and we can all pretend they lived here?

Er, sorry, I was confusing St. Petersburg, with all its monuments to its former resident Peter the Great, to the man himself. It's just non-saint Peter the Great.

Before we get all giddy about renaming streets, let's think of the implications:

1) Any business on the renamed street must incur the cost of replacing old letterhead, envelops, business cards, etc. This amounts to a fair chuck of change.

2) Anyone who uses a GPS device to find an address on Cesar Chavez Parkway (or merely given directions to travel on the renamed street) will be S.O.L. These devices aren't updated overnight. Map data stored in units from the portable units to the in-dash models found in new vehicles (including rental cars) will be instantly outdated. It can take years for the map data to be updated. Personally, Interstate Avenue is an area I wouldn't want to be lost in at night!

3) Same thing with online maps (Google, Yahoo, etc.) and standalone products like Streets and Trips.

Rather than rename a street, why not rename a park or a bridge?

To add to the above list:

4) How much will it cost the city (translation: how much will the public be taxed) to not only manufacture new street signs along this LONG stretch of road, but also the labor to remove the old signs and replace them with newer ones.

5) Don't forget about the big green directional signs like you see on freeways and major roadways. Any signs directing you to Interstate Avenue will also need to be replaced.

Here's a dilemma:

Do you 1.) name the street after the ethnic group leader whose ethnic group populates the area or 2.) name some other street or public building after them?

Interstate Avenue doesn't seem like it's in an area with a large Mexican-American population. NE Killingsworth Street (especially east of 33rd), yes. Schools in Hillsboro, certainly. (Aren't there a couple of high schools out there that have provisional names - Century comes to mind...)

Here's a dilemma:

Do you 1.) name the street after the ethnic group leader whose ethnic group populates the area or 2.) name some other street or public building after them?

Interstate Avenue doesn't seem like it's in an area with a large Mexican-American population. NE Killingsworth Street (especially east of 33rd), yes. Schools in Hillsboro, certainly. (Aren't there a couple of high schools out there that have provisional names - Century comes to mind...)

It's been interesting to follow the posts on this topic the last couple of days. My initial, gut reaction to the renaming of major streets was "don't bother." Upon more reflection, I think that there is a very good reason to do so that nobody has mentioned yet.

When you see MLKJ listed on a sign post, exit sign or address, you can't help but think of the man and his legacy, even if only for a fleeting moment in the back of your mind. Same with Rosa Parks Blvd. Perhaps instead of thinking of the renaming of a street as an honorarium, we should recognize it as a method of reinforcing among our community a set of values that were espoused by people like King, Parks and Chavez. The question that follows is whether or not, 100 years from now, the majority of Portlanders will benefit from a momentary recognition of who Chavez was and did when they see his name on a map -- or would the person behind a Chavez Blvd. be relegated to the same relative obscurity as other Portland street namesakes like Francis Pettygrove, William Overton and Guiseppe Division?

I don't understand why it has to be full names now days. In Vegas, there's Frank Sinatra Way. That sucks to say. Why not Sinatra Way? Nobody says Martin Luther King Jr Avenue.

What is the origin of the name "Interstate" anyway? I assume that in the pre I-5 days it was the main route to Vancouver? Well if so, then Interstate doesn't really fit either, does it?

What it was named for was the Interstate bridges.

It was called Interstate because of where it pointed you, not because it actually went there (the name terminated at Denver Avenue, which was actually the approach to the Interstate Bridge).

Before the Interstate Bridge was built, it was called Patton Avenue.

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