It's a question nearly everyone in the Bay Area has asked: "Why isn't there a rainbow on BOTH sides of the Robin Williams Tunnel?"

More than 50 years ago, a maverick Caltrans official persuaded the agency to paint a rainbow on the northbound entrance of the tunnel now known as the Robin Williams Tunnel.

What was a delightful bit of creative color back then has become a beloved landmark for Marin County: The rainbow gateway that greets travelers as they cross the Golden Gate Bridge.

The rainbow of the Waldo Tunnel was one the reasons it was renamed the Robin Williams Tunnel. Like Robin, the rainbow of Waldo Grade has brought smiles and delight to adults and children for decades. 

 

 

 

But travelers the opposite direction, from Marin to San Francisco, don’t see any joyful spectacle. They only see a drab, grey arch -- unremarkable from any other piece of freeway infrastructure. The delight brought to generations of commuters from south to north is absent to those traveling north to south. 

 

 

That's just wrong. 

It's time to finally to finish the project of whimsy started by Robert W. Halligan in 1970 and put rainbows on BOTH ends of the Robin Williams Tunnel. 

It was a Change.org petition that sparked the movement to rename the tunnel for Robin Williams, and we're turning to the community once again, this time to ask the Caltrans Transportation Art Program to spearhead the drive to make Robin Williams Tunnel whole and let the rainbow flow for everyone north AND south.