Summer in the Richmond

This summer on the west side of the City, the Recreation and Park Department plans to host three concerts at the Polo Field in Golden Gate Park.

The concert series begins with the newly announced Dead and Company concerts from Friday, Aug. 1 to Sunday, Aug. 3. It continues with the Outside Lands Festival the following weekend, Friday, Aug. 8 to Sunday, Aug. 10, and ends with the Polo Field concert on Friday, Aug. 15. This amounts to the closure of our park for close to a month with the set-up for the Dead and Company concert beginning on July 23 and final breakdown and park reopening on Aug. 20.

This closes all north-south roadways on our end of the park on concert days and Middle Road and JFK Drive throughout the entire duration of the park closure. With traffic already greatly impacted with the permanent closure of the Upper Great Highway, these closures will create even further problems and delays for Richmond residents who need to move around the district and to other parts of the City and Bay Area.

I have asked the Recreation and Park Department for a detailed report of their neighborhood impact mitigation plan, traffic mitigation plan, public transit schedule, geo-fencing for ride-share pick-up and drop-off, as well as noise and parking management.

While we wait for their response, we have seen new data from the San Francisco Chronicle on the impact the closure of the Upper Great Highway has had on commutes and trips from the Richmond. With the closure of the Upper Great Highway, north to south commute times across the City have increased by at least 10 minutes per trip, and traffic and speeds have increased on neighborhood streets. The park road closures for these three weekend concerts will make this worse, and we deserve an adequate mitigation plan in the immediate term and in the long term. We must increase public transit options for north-south travel, and we will continue to push for solutions for the Richmond.

In the meantime, there will still be ongoing construction for vital upgrades to sewage and water pipes along Geary Boulevard during summer, so plan your trips in the Richmond accordingly, and thank you for being patient as we continue to improve the Richmond.

For those of us who are feeling like we are trapped in the Richmond this summer, we can still have fun together. There will be monthly night markets on Clement Street between 22nd and 25th avenues and new neighborhood restaurants to try out. Check out the new dumpling place, Bao Bao on Geary at 16th Avenue. Grab some tapas at Zitouna on Clement and 26th. Sing karaoke at Goemon Izakaya Bar & Karaoke Lounge on Clement and 32nd and celebrate the reopening of Toy Boat with ice cream and welcome back Butterscotch!

I hope to catch up with some of you at the Clement Street Farmers’ Market one of these Sundays. See you around in the Richmond!

Connie Chan represents District 1 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.