Amid a global pandemic, a housing shortage, and racial reckonings, many San Francisco residents in the Outer Sunset seem to be most enraged about a 2.5-mile stretch of asphalt being closed to traffic, allowing recreation along one of the most unique urban beaches in the world.
At least if you believe the multiple threads of 100 posts complete with photos on Nextdoor.
In March 2020, the Great Highway closed for routine sand removal, a regular occurrence during the windy spring months. District 4 Sup. Gordon Mar asked the SFMTA to keep the highway closed during shelter-in-place, one of more than two dozen emergency street closures across San Francisco as part of the Slow Streets program. The question now: Should cars be permanently banned from the Great Highway?
Before the pandemic, I frequently ran on the asphalt footpath parallel to the Great Highway, but when COVID-19 struck I had to alter my route because of the impossibility of maintaining distance. Now I can run with room to spare, and stay distanced from my neighbor when we walk our dogs.
When my husband and I take our daily walk to the beach, we don’t have to dodge automobiles; in the worst case, we wait for cyclists or a troupe of roller skaters to whiz by. When we get to the dunes on the other side, we hear the roar of the ocean and giggles of children rather than horns and engines.
From the Nextdoor posts, which have started bleeding into letters to the editor in the Sunset Beacon, you’d think someone was coming around to take cars away, or that there were zero alternative north-south routes through the city.
My head spins with the circular arguments:
- “I’ve lived here for 40 years, and it’s always been a highway.”
- “It’s meant for cars; there is ‘highway’ in the name! (Except for Lower Great Highway. That’s not a highway.)”
- “I use it on my commute, but now I have to use my vehicle that is meant to drive me long distances to go a few minutes out of my way.”
- “No one uses it! Look at this photo with nobody in it.”
- “I don’t feel safe using it because it’s so busy! Look at this photo of so many people.”
- “People can just use the beach, especially those on bicycles and in wheelchairs.”
- “People can just use the path. The crowds can squeeze onto a path six feet wide.”
There is something insidious about these arguments — the audacity, the entitlement, the thinking that a city of 850,000 people won’t change in ways that were unexpected and impossible to plan for. That’s basically our history as a city.
Perhaps because we’re not out in the world chatting in bars and grocery lines, we’ve lost our ability to debate an issue. Are we now permanently in fight mode? Seriously, what are we fighting about here?
What’s too bad is there are valid issues within the mess being drowned out by the ranting. One legitimate concern is that the rerouted cars add a burden to the parallel residential streets through the Sunset. Improved alternate routes are indeed needed.
What drives me to frustration is that the problems resulting from our new Great Walkway aren’t unsolvable. Why don’t we at least focus on what should be done, instead of just hoping that repeatedly yelling “open it back up” will do something?
After surveys and a virtual town hall attended by more than 400 people, Mar’s office has worked with city agencies to address concerns. Many of the resulting traffic mitigation efforts were already much needed, which I’ve seen firsthand. Years ago, my boyfriend (now husband) lived along the Lower Great Highway, the residential road that parallels the Great Highway. On days the Great Highway was closed for sand removal, and even on good surfing or sunset days, traffic clogged the Lower Great Highway. The lack of stop signs and speed bumps meant cars could pick up speed and blow through intersections.
Crossing the Lower Great at the end of Moraga Street, which didn’t have a stop sign, was a fraught battle between me, my barking dog, and a speeding hunk of metal operated by someone on a cell phone — that is, until a stop sign and speed table appeared. Now I can step from the sidewalk without fear of being hit by a car moving at 30 mph (or more).
From highway to byway
This isn’t the first time Mother Nature has forced us to reckon with a highway. Before the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake severely damaged the Embarcadero Freeway, there had been calls to remove it for years. The earthquake settled the matter, and the Embarcadero became a destination for tourists and locals alike. I haven’t met anyone who misses the raised freeway, and people can still get from point A to point B.
We’re now facing two reasons to reimagine the Great Highway: a virus that forced the city to take emergency action, and a changing climate that is already altering the landscape.
In a couple of years, cars will be rerouted anyway, because the Great Highway extension south of Sloat Boulevard is falling into the ocean, and the wastewater treatment plant next to it needs protection. Instead of continuing to maintain a highway through disappearing sand dunes, a plan has been approved to build a multiuse path and park as part of the renovations. All this traffic mitigation and studies of the downstream effects of closing a road will need to happen anyway. Why not now?
I understand the desire to hold onto things that seem comfortable, given the past year of tragedy and fear. Perhaps this attachment to the Great Highway is an attempt to keep one more thing from changing in a world in which everything has changed.
Is arguing on Nextdoor the way to adapt? I feel bad for those who try to calmly respond with facts. I tried it myself once, before slinking back into lurking mode. I started to wonder what would be a more productive use of my time and energy. Where would my attention to facts and data be useful instead of falling on deaf ears?
Open space committee
One evening after doomscrolling, I closed the browser window and switched to Twitter (I know), where I saw a post about vacancies on city advisory committees. As it happened, one of the seats representing my district on the Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Advisory Committee (PROSAC) was opening in a few weeks. I contacted Mar’s office and got myself nominated for the position. After being confirmed by the SF Board of Supervisors, I was on my first Zoom call as a committee member, and not as a member of the public.
Getting a glimpse at government at work has underscored how slow bureaucracy is, especially in San Francisco, where decisions need to be made about the decision to decide to do something. Yet it’s also given me reassurance that there are mechanisms in place to collect and analyze data before making those decisions, and to reaffirm the importance of voting and participating in local policymaking.
Nevertheless, being directly involved is a whole lot less frustrating and more fulfilling than yelling at strangers on the internet. As the closure of the Great Highway has taught me, moving slowly can have its benefits.
Erin Bank is a SF-based writer who covers topics related to mental health, social issues, local news, creativity, and science. She writes for the Sunset Beacon/Richmond Review and has been published in the Bold Italic. You can find her on the web, Facebook, and Twitter. When not sitting at a desk, she’s running the trails of Golden Gate Park, beachcombing with her husband and dog, trying to learn how to kitesurf, and keeping up her New York Times crossword puzzle streak.
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