You know it’s going to be a long day in San Francisco when a public official kicks off a meeting like this: “We can perhaps try to have a bit of empathy and not be attacking each other today.”
That was Gwyneth Borden, chair of the SF Municipal Transportation Agency board. The special City Hall meeting convened the SFMTA board and their Recreation and Park Department counterparts Thursday to vote on a plan, crafted by the two agencies, that would keep part of Golden Gate Park’s main drag, John F. Kennedy Drive, car-free.
Yesterday’s vote was not a final decision. It was to pass a recommendation that the Board of Supervisors preserve the open pedestrian and bicycle promenade. That the meeting became such a battleground shows how high passions run on the issue.
Nearly two years since its 1.5-mile eastern span became a no-drive zone, car-free JFK has been perhaps the city’s most contentious COVID-era issue. Thursday started with a “bring back the cars” rally on the steps of City Hall. One speaker, Charlie Perkins of Open the Great Highway, said the plan to close JFK Drive to cars, regardless of the views of people like him, reminded him of Donald Trump’s claim that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters.
Most speakers were less incendiary, highlighting arguments about access for seniors and the disabled that have been central for the pro-car folks from the beginning. Several called for the issue to go to the ballot.
The action soon shifted inside. While the meeting didn’t go off the rails — unless you count the anti-vaxxer who refused to wear a mask, rushed the podium, and had to be escorted out — the intensity of feeling was best measured by the multiple hours of public comment.
There was certainly passion on both sides. A few people even cried, including a de Young Museum representative. (The de Young convened the rally before the meeting, dropping the pretense it used when, a few months ago, it stood up a fake grassroots website with misleading information that encouraged visitors to lobby officials against the JFK closure.)
Much of that misinformation resurfaced at the meeting, as it has from opponents of slow streets elsewhere in the city.
Many pro-car speakers talked of safety. For the record: Before the pandemic this stretch of JFK, which drivers often used to bypass city streets, was on the city’s “High-Injury Network” of the most dangerous streets. SFMTA director of transportation Jeffrey Tumlin began the day citing this fact.
The big issue is accessibility for seniors, the mobility-impaired, and people who don’t live within walking or biking distance. Short of being able to drive up to every inch of curb space in the park, most of their concerns are being addressed by the new plan. (The plan also hews to the demands of Pi Ra, a leading mobility advocate who spoke with The Frisc three weeks ago about working toward a solution.)
One thing still to work out is lower prices at the underground garage, which is accessible without driving on JFK. According to testimony yesterday, the garage is on the radar of the mayor and the agency chiefs, Tumlin and Rec and Park general manager Phil Ginsburg.
In testimony, Ginsburg said the director of the nonprofit that manages the garage is “very excited” to work on improvements.
The envelope, please …
Toward the end of the long day, the commissioners took up the discussion. (You can find a more detailed play-by-play of this part of the meeting here.) It was soon clear how the vote would turn out. SFMTA commissioner Amanda Eaken said bringing cars back was not a compromise, as the pro-car people would have it. “We’re already giving everybody what they need,” she said.
The final vote was 7 to 0 for SFMTA board members, 5 to 2 for Rec and Park commissioners. The two dissenters were both longtime SF union leaders: Larry Mazzola, who objected that the closure blocked workers from getting to work, and Laurence Griffin, who said there hadn’t been enough community outreach to an antigrowth neighborhood group, and also that speeding bicyclists were a safety problem.
There’s one more step before JFK Drive is permanently car-free. The Board of Supervisors is expected to take up discussion next month before a live audience.
For those counting votes, we know that Sup. Matt Haney is in the car-free camp, as are his colleagues Dean Preston and Rafael Mandelman. Shamann Walton and Ahsha Safaí staked out anti-closure positions a year ago. Connie Chan has insisted on breaking the car-free flow — an idea that the new plan rejects — and wants to convene yet another working group for more discussion. Gordon Mar has a spanky new e-bike for his City Hall commute, but he says he likes Chan’s idea.
[UPDATE: The mayor and Sups. Preston, Mandelman, and Haney said Mar. 15 they will push for a car-free JFK plan based on what the SFMTA-Rec and Park boards approved last week.]
There’s still time for our local politicians to shift with the winds, of course. And with the views of the four other supervisors unclear, we’ll take this guess: It’s going to be a close vote.
Alex Lash, Anthony Lazarus, and Max Harrison-Caldwell contributed to this report.