Editor:

Question: When is a four-lane highway used by working people a “park?”

Answer: When elites choose to commandeer public space for private profit and status.

There has been much discussion concerning the handover of the Upper Great Highway to our effete bicyclistas, but there has been little to no examination of the perpetuators’ motives. First of all – the occasional balmy and sunny day aside – the Ocean Beach is frequently a miserable sand-driven place to be.

Rebranding a road as a “park” is a great perk for the real estate “industry,” of which ardent YIMBY Engardio has been a decades-long fierce advocate for. It has never been a secret that Engardio and other YIMBYs endorse the gentrification, displacement and corporatization of our neighborhoods. Their plan is to supplant neighborhood character and charm with sterile concrete, glass and steel monstrosities which will house retail chains and franchises galore. Imagination and aesthetic taste have never been an elite forte. From the corporate Skystar Ferris wheel in Golden Gate Park to doggie heads on JFK, we can rely on our elites for a steady supply of bad taste. And, as we see with JFK, it will be shoved down our throats whether we like it or not.

The closure is anything but environmental, as it actually causes more pollution. It is divisive, but elites want what they want and don’t care about the costs of that to others. The closure is also profitable for the individuals running the private businesses, including “nonprofits,” who are profiting from the division of half the highway into an events space. Bike rentals, food trucks and other commercial efforts will be omnipresent soon. This is change you can count on!

Residents will continue to be shut out from any form of policy and decision making, just as they have been with the anti-environmental “Gardens of Golden Gate Park” and other such “nonprofits,” which feed off of taxpayer dollars while dispensing immense salaries to their top brass. YIMBYs Melgar and Engardio deliberately did not consult their constituents before filing the ballot initiative just before the deadline on a Friday afternoon. It was simply something they saw to be to their advantage, so why would they make trouble for themselves by engaging constituents?

This fake park did not emerge in a background. It is part of a pattern of elites co-opting public space for their own profit and adulation, whether that takes the form of confiscating parking spaces, stringing up tawdry LED light chains on streets, or privatizing Strybing Arboretum.

Given that we are saddled with this authoritarian-leaning mayor and his sycophant YIMBY-majority Board, we can expect more of these ruthless shenanigans in the years ahead. Elites will make it very difficult to return the road to its intended use. Meanwhile, the new additions and commercial use have despoiled its previous desolate charm. At least property owners proximate to Ocean Beach are now worth more on paper, a pyrrhic consolation!

Harry S. Pariser