San Francisco’s Upper Great Highway leads a double life. On the weekend, it’s a peaceful promenade reserved for cyclists, walkers and in-line skaters enjoying a view of rolling sand dunes along the city’s Ocean Beach. During the week, it’s a vital artery utilized by thousands of drivers to navigate the west side of San Francisco.
But this fall, the future of this iconic stretch of coastline could be sealed for good, in a battle that’s shaping up to be the most contentious fight of San Francisco’s election season.
On Nov. 5, San Francisco residents will cast their vote for Proposition K to decide whether they want to permanently ban cars from a 2-mile stretch of the Upper Great Highway south of Golden Gate Park, converting that space into a waterfront walkway for pedestrians and cyclists.
If the Upper Great Highway is permanently closed to cars, it will be the longest roadway transformed for recreational use in state history.
For some, this is seen as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the city, akin to when the city tore down the Embarcadero Freeway in 1991 and revitalized the downtown waterfront.
“It’s become this kind of glimmer of hope of creating a more dynamic and interesting space, not just a long stretch of faceless highway,” said Britt-Marie Alm, a resident near the Upper Great Highway and owner of Love Fest Fibers, a yarn shop in the Sunset District.
For others, this proposal is a deep betrayal. Judi Gorski, a local resident who has lived near the Upper Great Highway for over 30 years, said the plan could turn the peaceful Sunset neighborhood into a chaotic traffic zone.
“This is just backwards,” Gorski said, “because you’re taking something that works and you’re destroying it.”
Years of Controversy
A vitriolic fight over vehicle access on the four-lane Upper Great Highway may sound familiar to San Francisco voters — and that’s because this highway and who gets to use it have been on the ballot before.
In April 2020, the city temporarily closed the Upper Great Highway and transformed it into a car-free street as part of the city’s COVID-19 response, turning the roadway into a public space to socialize outside during pandemic restrictions.
More than a year later, as pandemic restrictions eased, the Upper Great Highway reopened to cars, but only on weekdays. Though motorists were still able to drive on a two-lane residential street called the Lower Great Highway that runs parallel to the upper road, they weren’t happy about the restrictions, and several neighborhood groups placed a measure on the November 2022 ballot that would have fully reopened the Upper Great Highway to cars. More than 60 percent of voters rejected that measure, keeping the highway car-free from noon on Friday to Monday at 6 a.m.
But other forces are coming for the roadway. Climate change is causing parts of the beach to erode and threaten the highway, and the city already decided in May to close a stretch of the southern section spanning two-thirds of a mile, which connects the Upper Great Highway directly to Skyline Boulevard, a main artery into the southern part of the city. That part of the road is expected to close at the end of next year.
With this section closed, Supervisor Joel Engardio — who represents District 4, which includes the Outer Sunset — believes the ” Great Highway has lost its greatest utility,” because it will no longer provide direct access out of the city. So this spring, he and District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar proposed this ballot measure, asking voters to permanently close 2 miles of the Upper Great Highway. The SF Democratic Party endorsed the measure after a contentious vote in late August. Engardio said it’s unclear exactly how soon the road would permanently close if the measure is approved by voters.
A month later, cries of “Joel is a liar” could be heard from an “Open the Great Highway” protest that criticized the supervisor for co-sponsoring the plan without properly consulting his district. If voters reject the measure, the status quo, with vehicular access limited to weekdays, would remain until the end of 2025. After that, the Board of Supervisors will likely make a decision on the future of the Upper Great Highway, or they could punt the decision back to voters with another initiative in June 2026.
As the election nears, another chapter of controversy is being written on the heavily debated road.
Local Opposition
Permanently shutting down the road to cars has received intense opposition from locals in SF’s Outer Sunset, Parkside and Outer Richmond neighborhoods, who say that it will cause terrible traffic, hurt small businesses and prevent west side residents from leaving the city. Over half the residents in the Outer Richmond who responded to a 2021 county survey wanted to keep car access on the road. Opponents have staged car rallies around the city, attracting members of the Chinese American Democratic Club and far-right activists.
“This is an important north-south connector for our neighborhoods and is relied upon by thousands every day to go to appointments, visit family or commute to their jobs,” SF Supervisor Connie Chan, who opposes Proposition K and represents District 1 in the Outer Richmond, wrote in a text message to SFGATE.
Gorski, the Sunset local who has lived just off the Upper Great Highway since the ’80s, said her road was a quiet seaside street until the Upper Great Highway was closed to cars on weekends. Then, traffic increased “exponentially” near her home.
“You can’t open your windows from all the noise and the fumes,” Gorski said. She added that it’s “detrimental to the happiness of the people that live here.”
Opponents of the measure also say that it will hurt small businesses.
“We see a lot of congestion [during the weekend closures]. People are scared of coming in,” said Ed Siu, chairman of the Chinatown Merchants United Association of San Francisco and the representative for 45 businesses in the Sunset against the measure.
Alm, the owner of Love Fest Fibers in the Sunset, said the weekend closures to cars have already brought more business to her yarn shop. She said that turning the Upper Great Highway into a permanent recreational space will “bring more interest” to Sunset and create more foot traffic for her business and others in the otherwise “incredibly quiet and sleepy” area.
‘Renaissance in the Sunset’
Engardio similarly believes that banning cars on the Upper Great Highway will create a “renaissance in the Sunset,” with the new promenade attracting more foot traffic and, in turn, more businesses to the area.
“There’ll be a spillover effect,” Engardio told SFGATE. “All the people coming to this park are going to … go to the amazing restaurants for lunch and dinner in the Sunset.”
There’s some data to back up Engardio’s rosy forecast. The Great Highway Park is already the third most visited park in San Francisco, behind Golden Gate Park and the Marina, even though it is only open as a park two and a half days a week, according to the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department and San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. There’s also evidence that nearby property values will increase, according to Damian Kevitt, a traffic expert from Streets Are For Everyone.
And the measure could bring international attention to one of the sleepiest San Francisco neighborhoods. The New York Times already described the highway as one of the most innovative places around the world in 2022 after it closed to car access. If the measure passes, Upper Great Highway will be the largest road closure for pedestrian use in the city, according to Rec and Park. Kevitt, who’s based in Los Angeles, said this is also the biggest pedestrianization project in the state. Bart Ney, a Caltrans spokesperson, said the agency is unaware of any pedestrianization project across the state that’s larger than the Upper Great Highway proposal.
Opponents of the measure believe it will have disastrous effects on traffic, but Engardio thinks the data says otherwise. The current road closes dozens of times each year when wind pushes sand onto the roadway, and during these closures, drivers only see three minutes of added travel time on peak weekday hours, according to Rec and Park and SFMTA data. The closure of the Upper Great Highway will also not affect emergency services, because it is “not a designated evacuation route” according to the San Francisco’s Department of Emergency Management.
‘It Just Closes The Road’
Advocates for the measure have drummed up support for their park with colorful sketches that show the highway redesigned with new benches and plant-lined bike paths. But the measure doesn’t actually fund any park features. Marie Hurabiell, founder of the political group ConnectedSF and a resident of District 1, told SFGATE the city will need to spend millions of dollars to outfit the park, none of which is allocated in November’s ballot proposal.
“The measure itself does not create a park,” Hurabiell said. “It just closes the road.”
Proponents of the closure say that part of the funds for the park will be attained through the money saved from sand removal, since all four lanes will not need to be fully cleared for vehicle use. The city recently found that $350,000 to $700,000 could be saved annually in sand removal reductions if the measure is passed.
Hurabiell thinks this is misleading and that the city will still need to do the same amount of sand removal even if it closes the road.
But other locals are more optimistic that closing the road will inevitably lead to a better future in the Sunset. Robin Pam, founder of safe streets group Kid Safe SF, told SFGATE that Proposition K would be transformational for the city.
“San Francisco has always been a leader when it comes to removing freeways and repurposing our public spaces with new lives that allow more people to get outside and experience the city in new ways,” Pam said. “I think the Great Highway is really our next opportunity to create that kind of iconic public space that San Francisco really is world famous for.”
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