A petition was proposed recently to change the name of the Waldo Tunnel, known to many local residents as the Rainbow Tunnel, to “the Robin Williams Tunnel.” Many Marin and San Francisco residents are not aware of the official name for the tunnel, but recently, Belvedere resident Julie Wainwright created a petition to change the tunnel’s name, in honor of recently deceased Bay Area resident and celebrity Robin Williams.

The petition later garnered a substantial amount of attention, and will be proposed to California state officials in December 2014. Williams was a well-known actor and comedian who lived in Tiburon, whose death captured national media attention after his body was discovered in the wake of an apparent suicide in early August.

Later that month, Wainwright created the petition in the hope that others would agree with her that Williams deserved a local memorial. “He was my neighbor — I often saw him running errands, walking the dog, performing at the local theater, working at the coffee shop,” Wainwright said. “Robin wasn’t just an international icon – he was an integral part of our community here in the Bay Area. We claim him as our own.”

Williams made his debut performance in the television series “Mork & Mindy,” and later starred in commercially successful films such as “Dead Poets Society,” “Jumanji,” “Good Will Hunting” and “Mrs. Doubtfire. “

Wainwright hoped to garner 10,000 signatures on the petition she created on the petition site Change.org, but as of October the petition had already acquired over 55,000 signatures. State attention was brought to the petition when Williams’s family stated that they supported the cause. California state assemblyman Marc Levine was the target of the proposal, and later agreed to bring the petition to the state after it passed the 50,000 signature mark.

“When the petition first circulated, I thought it was a wonderful idea,” Levine told the San Francisco Chronicle in early October. ““It was as though Robin Williams knew us…in Marin especially, we had a very special relationship with him.”

The choice of the Rainbow Tunnel as a monument to Williams serves as a reference to the signature rainbow suspenders Williams wore in Mork & Mindy, one of his most well-remembered features. As of October, Levine had officially agreed to bring the petition before the state government in December.