By Michael Durand
Last week, I posted this on Facebook and Instagram:
The Sunset Beacon newspaper is working on a story for the July issue about the ballot measure to turn the Great Highway into a park. If you are interested in sharing your opinion and being quoted in the publication, please send an email by Saturday, June 22, to: Editor@RichmondSunsetNews.com. You can include up to two sentences sharing your point of view. You may be contacted by the writer for clarification or more detail.
Thank you.
Michael Durand, editor and publisher, Sunset Beacon, Richmond Review and RichmondSunsetNews.com.
Here are the replies I received:
The Upper Great Highway should not be closed 24/7, since such closure disregards the traffic impact on the neighboring community, the environmental impact of adding pollutants to the air and increasing climate changing greenhouse gasses, significant traffic problems in the Richmond, Golden Gate Park, Lincoln Way and Sunset Blvd. Supervisor Engardio’s misguided ballot initiative, which is not supported by the Richmond District’s Connie Chan must be defeated.
Jean B Barish
I have lived on lower Great Highway for 13 years and I am so hopeful that my neighbors will vote to convert a section of upper Great Highway into a fulltime park. The park will bring more joy and community and peace to our neighborhood – my kids learned to bike there, and I learned to roller skate – and we get to enjoy the ocean with our neighbors hearing the waves without exhaust and noise from a 4-lane highway.
– Heidi Moseson (39yo)
My 8yo old son also wants to contribute two sentences – his are: “Making the highway a park would be way more fun. And cars make pollution.” – Wilder Lidow, 8yo
Thank you for covering this!
Transforming Upper Great Highway into an oceanfront park will make the space more accessible, equitable, and sustainable for all San Franciscans as well as visitors. With all of the challenges and frustrating realities our city faces, creating a new, inclusive oceanfront park seems like a no-brainer and an increasingly rare positive opportunity for San Francisco — we should seize this opportunity now, so we can reap the benefits as soon as possible.
–Luke Bornheimer, Sustainable Transportation Advocate
I live on Lower Great Highway and, like a majority of the Sunset, my family supports the full-time park ballot proposition. I can confirm first-hand that the traffic is light on Lower Great Highway, even when Upper Great Highway is closed to cars. Last week SFMTA released a report that drive times across Sunset increase by only 1 minute on average (and 1-3 minutes at rush hour) when Upper Great Highway is closed due to sand. Four more votes for the park!
Thank you for writing this important article!
Jeff Daniel
I live in the Inner Sunset and really enjoy biking along the Great Highway on weekends when it’s closed to cars. The city has a once in a lifetime opportunity to build a beautiful public park right along the coast for future generations to enjoy, we should vote for the park this November.
-Alex Woodward
I live on the Great Highway and await every Friday at noon when the cars stop and the festivities begin. It’s a treat to watch every type of person, from young to old and fit to disabled, reveling in our beautiful coastline.
Jessica Dunne
The vote is a binary choice only. It denies citizens the choice of a compromise. This vote is to force an early decision and ignores the pilot time-line. Engardio and the bike cult are afraid a new mayor in 2025 might interfere with their plans to ruin the outer Sunset with traffic and pollution for the pleasure of a certain tiny population of bike riders. Many people like me would vote for a weekend closure but Engardio has denied us that choice. This is unacceptable.
Addendum to my earlier email at 2:45: I had an email exchange with Engardio about leaving weekend closure off the ballot. He said it was “too late.” He didn’t discuss this vote with his constituents, but for sure he discussed it with the bike cult and park and rec and sfmta. He should be held accountable for ignoring his own constituents.
Patricia Arack. I am a retired CCSF FACULTY and leader Concerned Residents of the Sunset.
When the pandemic started, I was pregnant and the Great Walkway was a safe spot for me to take bike rides. Later, my oldest daughter experienced her first Halloween at the Great Hauntway and we had coffee outings while going on a walk. Recently, my mom came to visit from Europe and we enjoyed a lovely accessible beach walk with both kids without worrying about getting hit by a driver (or getting stuck in the sand). We’d love to see the Great Highway become a permanent park.
Teresa Hammerl
When I stumbled upon the Great Highway without car traffic in April 2020, it was a space transformed. It has since become my favorite place not only in the city, but in the world. For generations after us, people will visit this iconic, only-in-San Francisco, oceanfront park and marvel at the fact that it used to be just a road.
John Elliott
I think that the thousands of motorists from San Mateo , Santa Cruz Marin, etc. have standing in the matter as users of the Great Highway . Essentially the Great highway is part of the state highway system and all users should have their rights protected and represented on the issue. The SF politicians seem to think this is just a neighborhood issue, but it affects a much bigger area outside our county by creating traffic problems when the GH is closed .
Terry McDevitt
I noted the Facebook post about an upcoming article on the UGH ballot issue. I was one of the citizens who appealed the permitting to the Board of Appeals a few months ago (when the city argued that they wanted the compromise pilot to stay intact for the full three years so that they could gather more usage data to then inform further review). So, I am very aware of the large number of issues associated with the ballot proposal.
It’s disappointing that a so-called public servant – who has acknowledged a split of opinion on a contentious issue in the district they supposedly represent – would force further division by putting this issue on the ballot as a binary decision to end sharing. It’s especially troubling when many folks have highlighted the need for compromise and environmental analysis and stewardship, and a recent report has indicated that the foot-traffic on the dunes is contributing to erosion in the habitat of an endangered species.”
Thank you for supporting the Sunset.
Geoffrey Moore
The Great Highway Park could reshape how we view Ocean Beach in a way we haven’t seen since the days of Adolf Sutro and George Whitney. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to follow in the legacy of the Cliff House and Playland; a legacy that envisioned the west side as a vibrant, inclusive, and fun place.
Alex Wong, Outer Sunset resident
Almost every iconic San Francisco landmark was once derided as unsafe, unnecessary and inappropriate for its neighborhood. The Great Highway Park has the potential to be a wonderful place for the community and I look forward to the day it transforms from being a road to a destination.”
Ryo Chiba
I thought I would share a short perspective on the potential closure of the great highway as somebody who would benefit from either outcome. Though I selfishly could benefit more from a full time park, I am leaning towards voting against a permanent closure because it lacks pragmatism and I don’t care for the misleading propaganda about a road to nowhere – we all know that you can continue south by turning left on Sloat.
As a runner I’m lucky to enjoy ritual weekday visits to Ocean Beach and Golden Gate Park, in all seasons and weather, which gives me some doubt about the alleged popularity of a coastal park every day. Come over here now on a Monday to find a sparse collection of us in the fog and wind; perhaps not enough of us to merit further traffic and congestion for the elderly and commuters of the avenues.
Jenna Jorgensen
Those who are being asked to use the Avenues and Sunset Blvd. to get across town instead of the Great Highway are not the ones who will be benefiting from it as a park on weekdays. They have to work. Children will not be benefiting from it as it as a park on weekdays. They will be in school. It will only benefit the tiny minority lucky enough to work from home – or not work at all – who can play at a park anytime they want. And that’s not most of us.
Alyse Ceirante
San Francisco does not suffer from a lack of parks, in fact, it ranks among the highest in the U.S., according to Trust for Public Land Park Score:
City officials want to take away a vital artery used by motorists, commuters and emergency responders, pushing 20,000 cars per day into our residential neighborhood, which is ill-suited for this onslaught of traffic and congestion. Their plan is poorly thought out, and will only serve to create hazardous conditions in the Sunset, which residents have already seen during the weekend closures of the Great Highway.
Jasmine Madatian
Michael Durand is the editor and publisher of the Richmond Review and Sunset Beacon newspapers and the RichmondSunsetNews.com website. He can be reached at Editor@RichmondSunsetNews.com.
Categories: From the Editor
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 
To say we need the Great Highway to be a “park” seems to ignore the fact that there is ALREADY a park, a REAL park that is part of the National GG Recreational Park that is called Ocean Beach. For decades people have used the beach and the parallel walking path for recreation and cars and bicycles on the GH as one of the three major arteries going north south for the western part of SF. We all shared the area. The Great Highway is one of the safest streets in SF as opposed to 19th Ave and Sunset which have much higher injuries rates. Both 19th Ave and Sunset have repeated construction on them which causes major log jams whenever the north south transit routes are decreased by 1/3 by closure of the Great Highway. Studies by UC Riverside has shown increase smog emission along 19th Avenue post pandemic and even they postulated it was due to closure of the GH. Traffic is diverted through residential neighborhoods when an artery that carried 20,000 vehicles/day is closed. Why aren’t Halloween parties/parades etc held on school yards, existing parks (after all SF is suppose to have a park within 10 minutes of every resident), and other safer venues instead of closing a major traffic artery needed for people to go to to work, keep appointments, do chores? You know, real life, not just recreation. Joel Engardio asked that the scheduled openings of the GH be delayed so a pilot car (occ not available by Park and Rec in a timely way) could escort recreational users off the Great Highway because a few parents claimed they were caught unaware of cars on the GH. The schedule is known. Just because a railroad track appears to be empty although known to be an active track (just like the GH is open to cars Mon 6 am to Fri noon), why would a responsible parent allow their children to play on it? I won’t go into the damage to the wildlife, vegetation, dunes, etc when people trample them during these “celebrations” like parades, Halloween parties, etc which could be held in less vulnerable sites.
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Jen Nossokoff tried pretending that closing the Great Highway was some huge environmental imperative, would lead to cleaner air, cooler temps, verbatim.
I would use the term LIE to describe that line of BS. It has no bearing on reality.
Meanwhile more vehicles on residential streets without traffic controls is exactly what everyone with common sense knows it is – more dangerous, not less.
Kick these carpetbaggers to the curb. “TogetherSF” “WalkSF” etc are full of crap.
These are the same ones that tried to capitalize on the elderly woman who killed a family of 4 with her SUV in West Portal, as if more traffic signs and bike paths would somehow prevent that event. These people are shameless propagandists.
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Ryo Chiba, it’s a destination RIGHT NOW. You don’t have to take a car to get there, you can perfectly safely walk the entire length of the Great Highway without ANY CHANCE of being hit by a vehicle. It never happens. Not ever.
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Business in the city is failing largely due to too many changes that were instigated over the last few years. Too many changes too fast that threw the success San Francisco once had out the window. The tear it all down to reconstruct better crew was done a great job of destroying the city we once knew and loved. The war on cars started us down the path to destruction and now we are living in the results One can only hope that there are enough true San Francisco citizens to keep the Great Highway open to cars. Otherwise we can all say goodbye to the city we once loved as more families and businesses will leave.
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