CONVERSATION
To create pandemic breathing room in April 2020, San Francisco turned 1.4 miles of Golden Gate Park’s John F. Kennedy Drive, which before COVID was one of the city’s most dangerous roads, into a car-free zone. The Board of Supervisors should soon decide whether to bring automobiles back or keep JFK car-free.
Many want to see what they call the “JFK Promenade” preserved. Others want the road reopened to cars immediately. But on both sides of the debate, people have agreed that the park’s future needs improved access for seniors, the disabled, and others with limited mobility.
A claim in a recent lawsuit to reopen JFK Drive — as well as the Great Highway, which is currently closed to cars on weekends — was that the closures deny access to seniors and disabled people. An SF superior court judge threw cold water on the plaintiffs’ arguments last week.
Perhaps surprisingly, a key advocate for people with limited mobility also disagrees with the lawsuit. Pi Ra, transit justice director for the nonprofit Senior and Disability Action, has been in the middle of negotiations on JFK’s future with two city agencies and bicycle and pedestrian advocates.
Not only is Ra in favor of a car-free JFK — with conditions — but he’s confident that the city will meet at least some of those conditions, such as a more frequent JFK Drive shuttle service. The changes that Ra says are under discussion line up with a Recreation and Park Department list of ideas to improve access and street safety. (”Nothing is final yet and nothing has been announced,” Rec and Park spokeswoman Tamara Aparton told The Frisc.)
Meetings with Rec and Park and the SF Municipal Transportation Agency continue. Other advocates for a car-free JFK are comfortable with Ra and SDA’s work so far. “SDA has been leading the conversations, and we are supportive,” Walk SF executive director Jodie Medeiros told The Frisc.
Ra, 68, began advocating for paratransit users in 1985. That was three years after he changed his name from Douglas Herbert Malhenzie while living in the Star Dance commune, now known as Purple Rose. (“Pi” was inspired partly by college astrophysics studies. “Ra,” he said, would take too long to explain.)
He is legally blind in one eye from Type 1 diabetes and also suffers from charcot foot, which causes bones in his feet and ankles to degenerate and makes walking difficult. “Fortunately,” Ra said, “I can use my bicycle as my mobility aid.”
We spoke to Ra recently about SDA’s demands and how to create car-free streets that work for everybody.
This conversation has been condensed and edited.
The Frisc: What are Golden Gate Park’s major accessibility issues?
Pi Ra: The ability to actually get to the major sites along JFK. That’s why we have the list of needs. The shuttle is what we’re working on the most. At SDA we have a hard time thinking the car is an essential accessible need, because cars also create blockage and prevent other people from using the park, due to pedestrian safety. And in the long term there’s an environmental issue.
Which spots are most difficult to access?
I’ve been hearing a lot of complaints about the Conservatory and the Rose Garden. A shuttle that actually works will address that issue. They set up a service that was set to fail. Only one or sometimes two vans out there? How’s that gonna work? There’s no backup, it’s unreliable, you have no way of knowing when the van’s coming and going.
Through negotiations [there’s] a proposal of three vehicles on weekends and two on weekdays. It’s a step in the right direction, but we really want three during the week and on weekends.
How did those negotiations begin?
It started in December 2020 with Rec and Park, SFMTA, and us — we invited people to talk about the shuttle service and other improvements. There was also a working group with neighbors, the SF Bike Coalition, Walk SF, the de Young Museum, and quite a few people, where we talked about how to make it easier for people from outer parts of San Francisco to get to the park.
‘When the 49ers and Giants were playing down at Candlestick, Muni had buses going there directly from various neighborhoods. Why can’t they do that on weekends for the park?’
As that was happening, there were rumors that the city was going to close down JFK permanently, and both sides started pushing each other’s buttons. That’s when we decided to come up with what we as seniors and people with disabilities would like to see. We’d like to see JFK and maybe more streets in the park closed. It creates nice safe zones for pedestrians. But how can we enjoy the same benefits? How can we get there?
Our original demands said, “Until you start meeting these demands, [JFK Drive] should go back to the 2007 agreement.” We only used that as a negotiation point. Rec and Park and MTA have pretty much agreed to everything we’re saying, so that point is now antiquated. I’m quite hopeful that we won’t have to go to the 2007 agreement.
For folks in far-flung neighborhoods, there are plenty of parking spots in the park and free drop-off in the garage. Is that insufficient?
We’re not arguing so much for more parking. I’m interested in how to get there by Muni.
When the 49ers and Giants were playing down at Candlestick, Muni had buses going there directly from various neighborhoods. It was a very quick ride. Why can’t they do that on weekends for the park?
And, yeah, there’s plenty of parking outside, but how can they get from their parking spots to JFK? There should be ways of doing that too. If JFK’s closed, why not make designated shuttle stops and ADA parking at all the streets that go to JFK?
Also, [put] taxi stands at the de Young and the Academy of Sciences. And scooter rentals — you can rent bicycles at the park; why not shared scooters, accessible ones?
It comes down to what resources can we provide to make it accessible without using your car.
Do you think there will be enough disabled parking in the park?
Yeah, I think so. Cars are essential for various things, but we are overdependent on cars. This has been a big controversy in our membership. Some members, you have to pull that car from their cold, dead hands. We understand where they’re coming from, but that’s not where reality is. If Rec and Park is serious about making the park accessible, we can provide that accessibility outside of cars.
You’re calling for a shuttle, paratransit, and taxis. Would any of these travel on car-free JFK?
The shuttle would go on JFK. It would be good if taxis could go to the concourse and drive around that loop, but I don’t think they need to go down JFK.
[Editor’s note: Paratransit vehicles are allowed on car-free streets in Golden Gate Park, according to SFMTA planner Maddy Ruvolo.]
Would you support taxis entering via 8th Avenue, as the 44 O’Shaughnessy bus does now, and interrupting the car-free flow of JFK?
I would start without it and see how it goes. I think it would be easier for them to enter from the [south] side, from MLK Drive. If you have a car, it doesn’t take that much time to go to the other side.
The de Young has said car-free JFK impedes visitors who want to drive. What do you think of that?
The garage has never been at full capacity. It’s implied that the de Young is really more interested in their employees getting free parking [on JFK]. And we need to make [garage parking] affordable for seniors or people with disabilities who are on a fixed income.
This is a problem, and I’m part of that problem. When we had this big fight [in the 1990s], we came to an agreement that there would be parking, but city funds would never help pay for the bond [to build the garage]. When they passed Proposition J, that was the compromise: No city funds can be used to help pay for the garage. Now that’s kicking us in the ass. We never thought this would happen.
To us, it was big business trying to incorporate that park. It was “We’re not gonna let the city supplement another business going in there.” So they created a public nonprofit. But this nonprofit rarely met. They weren’t really doing anything — they set the fees and that was it.
[Update 4/26/22: The Board of Supervisors voted in December to give SFMTA the authority to control the garage fees. A flexible pricing model could come later this year. ]
Does garage drop-off provide sufficient access to the concourse area — the de Young, Academy of Sciences, Japanese Tea Garden, and bandshell — for people with limited mobility?
The big complaint was that 15 minutes is not enough time to unload someone in a wheelchair and get out without paying a fee. I think it should be more like 30 minutes. Make it easy.
A judge met the lawsuit to reopen JFK and the Great Highway with skepticism. You mentioned that SDA doesn’t like to go to court. What’s the right strategy to address access issues?
I think it’s our meetings [with MTA and Rec and Park], but they’re not reaching out enough to the community. We should be saying what is the best solution, and then come up with a plan after that. They need to open it up to more [groups] than SDA to discuss it.
Rec and Park and MTA have done outreach. Results of a big survey just showed that 70 percent of respondents were in favor of car-free JFK —
It was all internet. Yes, the majority of people use the internet, but we have people who don’t. That’s the problem with Slow Streets too. People with resources tend to get resources.
People were also passing out paper surveys on JFK. But if the street’s not accessible, do you get a biased sample collecting results on the street itself?
[Laughs] Yes.
Are you worried that more outreach would bog down the process, and that the mayor will lift the state of emergency before a comprehensive plan has been established?
I prefer you get it done right the first time. The MTA doesn’t spend enough time on the front part, so they spend so much time on the back part, which is the pushback. You spend all your time defending yourself, making minor compromises, and it delays everything.
We need more open space. Just make it accessible. It’s like Shared Spaces and Slow Streets — a fantastic idea. Let’s just make sure everybody can be part of it. I don’t want to be left out.
Max Harrison-Caldwell is a staff writer for The Frisc.
