Dear, Editor:
Sometimes it is difficult to see the forest for the trees.
This is the case with Sunset Dunes, otherwise known as the Upper Great Highway. This stretch of treeless road, once public, has been taken over by a coven of unelected and unselected elitists.
This group has decorated the stretch of road with such oddities as rusting giraffes and painted asphalt. Their taste becomes our taste, whether we like it or not. Public process is entirely lacking, and they have decided what goes where.
Mission Local’s Joe Eskenazi reports that $700,000 from Prop. A (2020’s $487.5 million Health and Homelessness, Parks and Streets Bond) have been spent on such amenities as a skate park and hammocks. These bond funds needs to be repaid with interest. Eskenazi calculates this pencils out at around a shocking $1.38 million. RPD also spent $213,000 ($419,000 after interest) out of 2020’s Prop. A bond money on signage and fencing to protect the native dune grass.
Neighbors have legitimate concerns regarding the need to use this highway. Detours create more stress and more pollution. There is nothing particularly ecological about Diablo Canyon-powered electric bikes and motorbikes taking over the stretch. Nor are yoga classes, skateboarding or parades activities which can not be staged elsewhere. Given the inhospitable fog and winds that beset the coast, these do not appear to be a great use of public space, profit making or not.
The corporate media is touting manufactured figures detailing the cost to restore the highway to working-class use. The truth is that it will cost far more over the decades to refurbish all the “art” and other infrastructure. Donations or not, you can bet we will be on the hook. As with the Arboretum and elsewhere, the figures will be in plain view yet out of sight in future Rec. and Parks budgets.
Voting “yes” on Prop. G is crucial to the future of democracy for many reasons:
First of all, it sends a message to our elites that we are tired of being the receptacle for yet another of their self-centered neoliberal concepts (think commercializing the Arboretum, an additional weekend of Outside Lands or the grotesque anti-environmental floodlights over the Ocean Beach soccer fields).
Secondly, their instillations will have to be removed to restore use, a triumph over bad taste. Let’s only hope that our unelected bureaucrats and elites – who arrogantly make decisions behind our backs – will comprehend the reprimand that passing Prop. G will send! We particularly need to send a message to the five supervisors who helped place the privatization on the ballot. On a Friday afternoon right before closing. On the last day to file. Without meeting with their constituents first to discuss. This needs to change!
Finally, a major reason for promoting this “park” has been aspirations for yet more astronomical real estate values. The real estate interests will surely be crestfallen when Prop. G passes.
Vote to support our working class and against gentrification. Vote “yes” on Prop. G!
From,
Harry S. Pariser
Categories: letter to the editor
I agree with everything you said. Open the Great Highway. YES on G! There is no need to have this wanna be Park Monday through Friday when barely anyone is there using it. They can still access the walking path which has always been there while normal people use the road for its intended purpose.
Beautifully and factually stated. Thank you Harry Pariser. I am in 100% agreement. Vote Yes on Prop G.
And here’s the beginning and why the tech bro and real estate money was behind Engardio and Sunset Dunes https://hoodline.com/2026/10/outer-sunset-architect-s-1935-home-gives-way-to-two-duplexes-overlooking-sunset-dunes/
I understand and respect the concerns of neighbors who would prefer to see the Great Highway reopened. Changes to commuting patterns are frustrating, and questions about public spending and community input are legitimate.
But I think this letter overlooks one of the most important reasons for supporting Sunset Dunes: the long-term health of our coastline and the protection of the Sunset District itself.
For more than 15 years, SPUR and San Francisco’s coastal planners have been studying how to adapt Ocean Beach to rising seas, erosion, and increasingly severe storms. Restoring natural dunes and native vegetation is part of that vision. Healthy dunes provide a natural protective barrier for the neighborhood behind them.
The suggestion that Sunset Dunes is really about increasing property values misses the point. It’s not about making real estate more valuable. It’s about ensuring that the homes, streets, and neighborhood remain intact for generations to come. This benefits not only homeowners, but renters and merchants in the neighborhood as well.
We can disagree about traffic and park amenities, but we should recognize that our coastline is changing and that adaptation is necessary for the long-term health of the coast and the neighborhood. Bringing cars full time to the Upper Great Highway is a step in the wrong direction.
Ocean Beach is not particularly vulnerable to a 1-2 inch global warming impact.
If you don’t understand the (pseudo) science you’re trying to use to justify shutting down a vital thoroughfare in a working class district, just say that instead of fearmongering as if removing cars from a highway that has never, ever, ever had ocean waters reach it, well, maybe you shouldn’t be pretending to make a scientific argument whatsoever? The cars exist full time, you’re just moving them onto less safe streets in a residential area.
Checkmate.
While Lower Great Highway is eroding, Sunset Dunes supporters are clearly happy to hand wave and conflate what is going on to the south with the closed section of road. As far as I can tell, the prime impact of climate change on the Upper Great Highway consists of increased sand being blown onshore during the windy months. I do not find this a terribly compelling argument. If the sea rose to the point where the road was threatened we are going to have far greater problems as a city and a society.
Ocean Beach (and its dunes) are part of GGNRA and any stabilization work has nothing to do with the outcome of Prop G. If you want to volunteer with the park service and do some gardening, go for it.
Sunset Dunes is and always has been a pet project of an extreme minority group of Sunset residents who happened to be well connected to tech oligarch money. The road closure does, on a weekday basis, have a negative impact on a far greater number of people than positive. I would bet good money that the weekday users that would be displaced by prop G are primarily drawn from that same Sunset minority group.
While your tone is respectful, conflating the Upper Great Highway with natural coastal protection is a complete misdirection.
The actual coastal erosion crisis and managed retreat project is at South Great Highway (Sloat to Skyline)—not the Upper Great Highway (Lincoln to Sloat). The Upper Great Highway sits on a bluff over 30 feet above sea level, set back behind wide beaches and robust coastal infrastructure.
Paint on asphalt, hammocks, and skate parks are not a natural dune ecosystem, and keeping a paved 4-lane roadway closed to working-class weekday commuters does nothing to protect the Sunset from sea level rise. Real coastal adaptation requires serious engineering at the vulnerable south end, not greenwashing asphalt on the Upper Great Highway.
Prop G provides a balanced solution: it preserves 100% car-free weekend recreational access while restoring the weekday coastal arterial that local working families, seniors, and transit-dependent neighbors rely on every single day.