It’s official: Sunset Dunes will be the name for San Francisco’s new oceanfront park replacing the Upper Great Highway, the Recreation and Parks Commission voted on Wednesday afternoon.
The decision came after about five weeks of a semi-democratic process: Rec and Parks gathered submissions (among them “Parky McParkface” and “Engardio’s Folly”), then chose 15 names from more than 2,000 for the public to vote on; some of them very popular with early submitters, some less so.
The public voted on those 15, and commissioners then chose from among five finalists: Fog Line, Great Parkway, Playland Parkway, Plover Parkway and Sunset Dunes.
The park, which was approved by voters when Proposition K passed 55-45 in November, will hold its grand opening ceremony this Saturday.
But its future is still unclear after District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan indicated this past weekend that she may put forward a ballot measure to undo Prop. K and reopen the roadway to cars.
Chan wrote in a column in the Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon on April 5 that she may seek to undo Prop. K and keep the Upper Great Highway open to traffic on weekdays. It would remain closed during the weekends.
“Many Richmond residents and small businesses have been asking me what I can do to help them ease the burden brought on by the closure of the Upper Great Highway,” Chan wrote.
To do that, however, Chan would need a citywide election, and soon. Right now, San Franciscans next head to the polls in June 2026.
But, if those hoping to recall District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio gather enough signatures and qualify for the ballot, Chan has the option to turn the special district election into a citywide one.
It’s tough odds: Chan would need six votes from her fellow supervisors to do this, and several have indicated they would not support municipalizing the recall election, even if it qualifies.
“I don’t currently see a compelling reason for a citywide election prior to 2026,” said Rafael Mandelman, the Board of Supervisors president. “I can’t really imagine” a reason further down the road, he added. Other moderate supervisors, like Stephen Sherill and Matt Dorsey, are unlikely to back Chan.
Engardio, the District 4 supervisor who is facing the recall, agreed and said he doesn’t “see a path to the required six votes.” District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar said she would “absolutely not” support this effort.
Chan’s allies in the progressive bloc are more likely to support her, but there, she can only count on three more. Chyanne Chen, the supervisor for District 11, said she hadn’t heard much about Supervisor Chan’s potential ballot measure. She said she didn’t believe in recalls in principle, but would be open-minded.
Shamann Walton, the District 10 supervisor, said he would support a citywide election.
Even if the special district election turns citywide, Chan would need three more supervisors to put her measure on that new citywide ballot, meaning that San Franciscans would, once again, vote to determine the future of the Upper Great Highway.
Meanwhile, a lawsuit that seeks to invalidate Prop. K is scheduled for a hearing on June 2 at 1:30 p.m.
The lawsuit, filed in March, days before the Upper Great Highway closed permanently to traffic, alleges that only the state has the authority to close the road, and that the closure violates the California Environmental Quality Act because the city did not conduct a detailed environmental review.
The park still has its share of naysayers. At the meeting on Wednesday, Commissioner Larry Mazzola Jr., a lifelong resident of the Westside, said, “I go into this vote today not feeling excited or proud.”
“Instead, I feel pressured to name something I never wanted in the first place, and the supermajority of the Westside feels the exact same way I do.” He suggested instead: “Reopen the Great Highway Park.”
Still, despite the controversy, the park is scheduled to formally open this Saturday.
“The Great Highway was one of the city’s first park spaces, connecting San Franciscans to the sea since the 1870s,” said Heidi Moseson, vice president of Friends of Ocean Beach Park. “We’re thrilled that it will continue to serve that important purpose with any name.”
connie chan is cynical and opportunistic and i hope the voters oust her district oust her next election. we’ll vote down her stupid ballot measure because this park is extremely popular by sf.
She’s termed out after this, thankfully; hopefully she’ll be replaced by someone who doesn’t believe that 100% of public space must always exist solely for driving.
“100% of public space must always exist solely for driving.”
Because Golden Gate park doesn’t exist, the existing pathway along the GH doesn’t exiast, Ocean Beach doesn’t exist, the 250+ SF parks don’t exist, “slow streets” don’t exist, I mean get real….
Bicyclist nihilists, you’re drunk. There’s plenty of infrastructure for non-car activity… maybe you’re just trying to control ALL OF SF for YIMBY political reasons, hm? Bernal supes should control the Sunset in addition to Bernal? Honestly the expectant greed of the newcomer yuppie NYC transplant class is breathtaking.
You don’t live in the district. Again. Yet you want to control it.
This is your issue as a YIMBY to get over. You are a sellout.
It’s literally a highway and major thoroughfare.
Please evacuate from the tsunami zone on a bicycle.
it’s not a highway, it’s never been a state controlled highway, it’s just a road named the great highway that we voted to turn into a park.
Ocean Beach has been popular since before you were born, kids. You didn’t invent that.
Well, she is termed out..
She’s actually standing by her position unlike Engardio the liar. FWIW.
“Streetlight found that traffic more than doubled in both directions of Lower Great Highway between Sloat Boulevard and Lincoln Way at 8:30 a.m. Eastbound traffic on Sloat Boulevard jumped 50%. At 4:30 p.m. on the same dates, traffic more than doubled in both directions of the same stretch of Lower Great Highway, while eastbound traffic on Sloat Boulevard was 80% higher than the previous week, according to the analysis. Northbound traffic on Sunset Boulevard saw a 30% uptick, while southbound traffic was up 15%. ”
They lied. They continue to lie. Sunset is not a Billionaire’s playground, Goog tools.
Connie Chan is one of the very few supervisors in the city who actually listens to her constituents and fights for what they want. That’s hardly cynical or opportunistic. Prop K won by only a 4.5% margin of voters in the city, many of whom don’t even use it or even know where it is!
No it’s not
No, it’s not really. 2/3 in both districts voted against it. It “passed” by 4% citywide margin by ignoring CEQA and local safety issues in a blatant bait and switch of the existing compromise, which most begrudgingly supported. The Billionaire dark money promises were false – it will not benefit the local environment and the opposite is in fact true. It creates safety hazards that have yet to be adequately studied, and it usurped oversight from the State using a loophole that its authors acknowledge doesn’t actually apply in reality. It’s flawed.
Just because Connie calls balls and strikes and you don’t like it, calling her names doesn’t really make you seem like you know what you’re talking about.
Do you even live in her district, or the Sunset either? Doubts. We don’t like liars.
@Daniel – “Gentrifier murals?” Puh-lease. You sound like the people calling fnnch a white settler-colonialist for painting honeybears.
^ Bicycle nihilists don’t live in the Sunset.
Connie Chan is indeed opportunistic and subjectively cynical, though she’s been fairly consistent with respect to the Great Highway closure(s). That said, she won her reelection in 2024, and will therefore be termed out upon completion of the current term. The open weekdays and closed weekends was probably the best compromise in hindsight.
“because this park is extremely popular”. Fair to say, at the same time, it’s also extremely unpopular.
I went down there the other day to go check things out. They’re in the process of painting a dozen or so gentrifier murals, meaning, work that’s mostly out of place and straining for cuteness. I can appreciate though how this generates income for a number of artist.
One really unfortunate arrangement: So there’s like four miles of roadway where they could have put this, but, no, they dropped some tree trunks into the western roadway at Noriega, right where the sand gets blown into the street when it gets windy from the NW. Creating a choke point, where its only a matter of time until somebody gets run over by some zealously pedaling cyclist.
“On December 27, 2024, a woman was fatally struck by a car on the Upper Great Highway near Ulloa Street. This was the 40th traffic fatality and 24th pedestrian death of the year in San Francisco.” Think the unavoidable bike accident you forecast will hurt more than death? And don’t let yourself get all bent out of shape by a cute octopus painted on the road. Leave it to pretty much every kid under 12 to enjoy. Maybe it was for them, and not for you? Those gentrifying kids are just too much!
There is no crosswalk at Ulloa. A traffic light and crosswalk with beach access is nearby at Taraval. PSA: Use it, it’s there to prevent people from getting run over (and trampling across the dunes).
It is supposed to be a partnership out there, where everybody does their part. When you forget about that, or don’t know otherwise, you’re just part of the problem.
🥱 Lest we forget, Chan pulled all sorts of “whuddabout we try this thing again that was already tried” nonsense around making JFK Promenade carfree. A total waste of everyone’s time. She’s so very very tedious.
She’s also loudly opposed slow streets, opposed bike lanes in her district, and generally fought the idea that anyone should travel by foot, on a bike, or by anything other than a car in this city, ever, at every single opportunity.
You’re tedious, she’s supporting her constituents where Engardio sold them out.
You don’t live in these districts, you don’t get a vote on who runs them.
Roll along now.
Lest we forget, Engardio lied and Chan kept her word. And you don’t live in the district, tedious one, but you pretend like you get a vote here. You do not.
Who is paying for this and who is overseeing what’s happening? Seems like the billionaire org is in control, not the city of SF.
That’s exactly correct, they’ve opened it up to Billionaire dark-PAC money and they don’t have to follow local laws, State laws, according to Scott Wiener.
We need leadership to replace the sucking sound that is the Wiener Constituency.
This definitely looks like a park that received a million dollar grant to open…… 🤣
Engardio is a liar either way. Facts matter, even in sleepy SF districts.