San Francisco is in the midst of a years-long debate over how much cars should reign on its streets. The pandemic accelerated changes, including Slow Streets that require drivers to share the pavement, and closures of two iconic roadways.
One closure, JFK Drive in eastern Golden Gate Park, was enshrined by a 2022 ballot measure. It’s become a haven for walkers, bikers, roller skaters, dancers, and art.
Now, with the recent vote for Prop K, the second closure is also permanent. More than a mile of the Great Highway along Ocean Beach will become a car-free park. The first phase of the transformation should start early this year.
But the vote geographically divided the city. It won 55 to 45 percent, but a majority of west side residents opposed the permanent closure. Some have launched a campaign to recall their supervisor, Joel Engardio, who represents the Sunset District and was a Prop K co-author.
“It’s going to be a political football, and it’s going to continue to be divisive, until we’re serious about problem solving,” says Sup. Connie Chan, who represents the west-side Richmond District and opposed Prop. K. District 1 voters elected Chan to a second term with 52 percent of the vote.
The city’s streets and transit agency, SFMTA, knows what the problems are. It’s working to fix them and ease congestion in and around the western end of Golden Gate Park that otherwise might worsen once the Great Highway is closed for good. (Since 2021, the road – specifically the Upper Great Highway – has been closed only on weekends.)
Whether SFMTA is making the right changes and moving fast enough is a point of contention, however. And one test of its work will be Chain of Lakes Drive, a short road that cuts through the west end of Golden Gate Park, connecting Chan’s neighborhood to the Sunset District.
Even though there’s a much wider north-south road with fewer stops just seven blocks to the west, drivers continue to risk the Chain of Lakes bottleneck to move between the Richmond and Sunset.
One of the biggest complaints from Chan and other Prop K critics is that the permanent Great Highway closure would push even more cars onto Chain of Lakes and other neighborhood streets. SFMTA’s plan is designed to route traffic around Golden Gate Park, not through it.
The closure of JFK Drive (now Promenade), once a major cut-through for drivers going from one neighborhood to another, has changed the feel of Golden Gate Park. The road fixes around the Great Highway are the next litmus test in an ongoing citywide shift to help drivers navigate a less car-centric world.
Why not go around?
To travel the half-mile length of Chain of Lakes, cars encounter five stops: a stoplight at Fulton Street, at the north end, then a four-way stop at JFK Drive at the midway point. Soon after there are three stop signs in a row: at a crosswalk outside the park’s empty horse stables, at Martin Luther King Jr. Drive where cyclists and pedestrians cross, and finally another four-way stop at Lincoln Way to exit the park.
On weekends, especially at this south end, Chain of Lakes traffic slows to a crawl. (The newly restored Middle Lake makes for a nice vista along the way, at least.)
The problem is, car travel between the west side of the Richmond and Sunset districts has few direct options. The Park Presidio Bypass, which flows into 19th Avenue, is often clogged. Then there’s Chain of Lakes, which flows into 43rd Avenue in the north and 41st Avenue in the south. Farthest west, there’s the portion of the Great Highway that will remain open to cars, where the park meets Ocean Beach.
SFMTA is focusing on this latter diversion, which is a handful of blocks. Yes on K campaign leader Lucas Lux says he finds this far-western route more efficient than Chain of Lakes despite the extra mileage, and he’d like it to be even faster.
“That is the route where we can improve and streamline the driving experience,” Lux said. “There’s only so much you can do for a Chain of Lakes park cut-through.”
SFMTA is installing new traffic signals right now at two places – Lincoln Way and 41st, where Chain of Lakes emerges, and Lincoln and the Great Highway – which Lux hopes will make his favored route around the park easier. Later, more signals that replace stop signs along this stretch of Lincoln, funded by $36 million in new grants, are supposed to help even more.
It remains to be seen if the Lincoln signals draw drivers away from Chain of Lakes and ease congestion within the park. Sup. Engardio indicated they’re not enough and is calling for changes along Chain of Lakes itself. But there are none in SFMTA’s or Rec and Park’s immediate plans.
Specifically, Engardio wants a signal at MLK Jr. and Chain of Lakes, where cars encounter a lot of bike and foot traffic. A traffic light there could be timed to the signal just a few yards away at 41st and Lincoln.
“Those need to be signalized so you don’t have all that backup,” Engardio told The Frisc. “That’s the pinch point, and that’s what we’re focusing on. I think it’s important that we have traffic mitigation in place before [the Upper Great Highway] closes.”
Engardio’s office later clarified that, while still the supervisor’s desire, the light is more of a wait-and-see scenario. Less complicated solutions, in the meantime, could be a pedestrian flashing light, raised crosswalk, or roundabout.
The extension effect
No matter what voters said about Prop K, the Great Highway and surrounding streets were in for major changes. The 1-mile Great Highway Extension, the southernmost portion of the road which runs along the ocean from Sloat to Skyline boulevards, is crumbling from rising sea levels.
The city has planned for more than a decade to close it to traffic and create a buffer to protect a wastewater plant and the SF Zoo, both just inland. Drivers that uses the extension to get to and from Daly City will be rerouted starting this year. The diversion requires its own spate of changes, including speed humps on residential streets and new traffic signals.
A 2021 San Francisco County Transportation Authority study estimated the extension’s closure would reduce traffic on the Upper Great Highway by up to 25 percent but increase traffic on Chain of Lakes.
The 2021 study also found that two-third of pre-pandemic trips on the Upper Great Highway were from the Richmond to San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.
In the runup to last year’s Prop K vote, SFMTA released an analysis of potential impacts. Among the findings: the closure of the Great Highway at peak weekday hours, due to blowing sand, added about three minutes to travel by car. (Earlier this year, the SF Public Press spoke with two out-of-town traffic data analysts who critiqued some aspects of SFMTA’s data.)
You can design and conceptualize all you want when the reality is not going to translate.
Sup. connie chan
SFMTA says it will conduct another study at an undeclared date to guide improvements to intersections around the northern entrance of the soon-to-be-closed Great Highway. Prop K did not come with funding, but a $1 million state grant approved in November will go toward community input on a future park design.
“The SFMTA is committed to continued multimodal improvements to the western neighborhoods as the Great Highway closure changes how neighbors move around their community,” wrote agency spokesperson Michael Roccaforte via email.
Sup. Chan wants more studies before the Great Highway closes to prove the planned changes will make things better. Until then, she says, Outer Richmond drivers like herself will likely keep cutting through the park.
“You can design and conceptualize all you want when the reality is not going to translate,” Chan told The Frisc. “I want a study that tells me specifically that these designs will help us ease the traffic impact in the area.”
Engardio took a different tack, noting it’s difficult to know in advance how everything will play out. After the permanent closure, he says, SFMTA will likely keep making adjustments. “I hear loud and clear that the biggest concerns Sunset residents have is traffic and pedestrian safety,” Engardio told The Frisc. “This will be an evolving process.”
No money can undo the damage of Prop K to San Franciscans who drive.
I have lived in the Outer Richmond District for 30 years. It has always been difficult to go from the Richmond to the Sunset or farther south. I was opposed to closing the Great Highway permanently because I could see how it was going to affect people living on the west side, further isolating them. I never heard any notion of a compromise. Why would it be impossible to build a park and also keep a vital transportation link?
If the City is determined to close down the Great Highway they need to propose an alternative that solves the problems of the Westside rather than exacerbating them.
When San Francisco built Golden Gate park there was little thought about getting across the park. We are now left with a wonderful green wall that divides the Sunset and the Richmond. I think we should consider a direct connection with Sunset Boulevard that would start somewhere around 40th Avenue. Put in below grade level with bridges and plantings and berms it could be a good deal less intrusive than the Park Presidio Bypass and provide a direct connection to Sunset rather than having cars clog up roads, ruining the restful feeling of the park we all love.
As it is now we have traffic jams on Chain of Lakes Drive and it will only get worse once the Great Highway is permanently closed.