News briefs
By Daily Bruin Staff
Jan. 30, 2005 9:00 p.m.
California quarter rolls out today
SACRAMENTO “”mdash; The California quarter makes its debut
today.
The quarter, which depicts conservationist John Muir gazing at
Yosemite’s Half Dome as a California condor flies overhead,
is the 31st 25-cent coin to be produced as part of a 10-year,
50-state quarters program conducted by the U.S. Mint.
The quarters are issued to mark the order in which states
ratified the U.S. Constitution and joined the union. California
became a state on Sept. 9, 1850, between Wisconsin and
Minnesota.
Los Angeles graphic artist Garrett Burke designed the coin,
which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger selected from five finalists that
also featured images of sun and waves, a redwood tree, the Golden
Gate Bridge and a gold miner.
The California quarter will be sent to the Federal Reserve Board
today for distribution to banks. “˜”˜It will take a few
weeks to work their way out” into circulation, said
Michael White, a spokesman for the Mint.
But people eager to get their hands on the coins will be able to
buy $10 rolls of them today between noon and 2 p.m. at the
secretary of state’s courtyard in Sacramento.
The Mint expects to produce 450 million to 500 million of the
coins over a 10-week period, White said.
Freeway to get big-rig upgrade
Transportation officials approved a $5.5 billion plan to rebuild
the truck-choked Long Beach Freeway into a modern highway with four
big-rig-only lanes, some of them possibly elevated.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board voted Thursday
to reconstruct an 18-mile state Highway 710 from the harbors to
rail yards in Commerce and East Los Angeles. The current six to
10-lane freeway will become a 14-lane highway.
The project is widely supported among transportation agencies
and industres because it would allow more trucks to carry goods
inland from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where cargo
volume is expected to double by 2020.
Thursday’s vote culminated five years of planning.
Construction, however, won’t begin until 2015 or later under
the blueprint approved, and funding for the project hasn’t
been found.
Compiled from Bruin wire services.
