Great Highway protest

Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon:

Protesting Plan to Close Upper Great Highway

By Thomas K. Pendergast

More than 100 people lined the steps in front of City Hall on July 23 to protest against permanently closing the Upper Great Highway for motor vehicle traffic between Lincoln Way and Sloat Boulevard.

A ballot measure is slated to go before San Francisco voters in November which, if passed, would prohibit cars, with a stated goal of ultimately converting the space into an oceanfront park.

In June, San Francisco District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio submitted the ballot measure with the backing of fellow supervisors Myrna Melgar, Dean Preston, Matt Dorsey and Rafael Mandelman just before the deadline for the next election, a move that caught some off guard. 

Opponents quickly organized to resist closing what they see as a vital north-south traffic artery.

“As a veteran who lives on the south side of the Great Highway, it is my access road to get to the VA Hospital when I need it,” said Leanna Louie, one of the protest organizers. “And it makes a big difference; not having the Great Highway open doubles my time going from my home to the VA Hospital. There are many people here who are in professions where they’re required to use the Great Highway,” she said.

Former San Francisco Police Department commander and a fourth-generation San Franciscan who graduated from George Washington High School, Richard Corriea, does not like a few things about the proposed ballot measure, including the timing of when it was submitted.

“It’s sneaky politics to stuff something like this in your desk and take it out on the last possible day for submitting things to the Department of Elections, so that they force us to have things like this so we can talk about it,” Corriea said. “We’re going to continue to talk about it and I can tell you this, the west side is going to be less safe, merchants won’t do as well, and someone needs to pay attention to that.”

But at least one supporter of converting the highway into a park also showed up at the rally. Lucas Lux, volunteer president of the Friends of Great Highway Park, thinks it is a great idea.

“It’s an incredible, positive opportunity that we should embrace in a city with incredible open spaces,” Lux said. “This is our next opportunity to open the ocean front for people to enjoy in more ways.”

Capt. Sherman Tillman of the San Francisco Fire Department, however, called for a “harmonious coexistence” between cars, bicycles and public transportation, which he says the Upper Great Highway already has as it is now. Tillman stressed that he was only speaking for himself as an individual, not as a representative of the fire department.

“Cars, bicycles and public transportation each serve a vital role in our daily lives,” Tillman said. “Cars provide convenience and flexibility; bicycles offer sustainability and health benefits. And public transportation promotes efficiency and environmental conservation. It is only through the integration and cooperation of all these modes of transportation that we can truly achieve a balanced and harmonious urban ecosystem.

“Now guess what? There’s something like that that already exists; it’s called The Great Highway,” he said. “Two blocks from there, there’s this thing called Golden Gate Park. When you think about urban planning, you have everything at the Great Highway. It’s already there. That is the model for the future.”

“A park isn’t necessary on the west side. It’s needed on maybe the east side,” Lope Yap said at the demonstration. “We already have two great parks: GGNRA (Golden Gate National Recreation Area) and Golden Gate Park.”

But this argument does not sway Lux.

“We have one ocean front. We have zero ocean front parks,” he responded. “Opening the ocean front for people to enjoy is an incredible opportunity and San Franciscans have voted with their feet, that they enjoy an oceanfront promenade.”

Lux cited statistics he said were gathered over the last four years during a pilot program, which shut down the highway for the pandemic and then later on weekends only.

“Just simply by closing a gate to cars during this pilot it has become the city’s third-most-visited park with over 10,000 visits every single weekend. Those are people who could go to Golden Gate Park, but they want to enjoy the ocean”....