Alan Wong launched his second month in office as District 4 supervisor by telling 100 or so of his constituents that he was committed to drafting a ballot measure to reopen the Great Highway to vehicle traffic during weekdays.
He is already thinking about whether he would propose kicking cars off the road at noon, or at 6 p.m. on Fridays.
Also: How would the ballot measure language address potential permit requirements from the California Coastal Commission? The commission voted unanimously in 2024 to approve closing the Great Highway to cars and turn it into a park.
“If we’re looking into getting Coastal Commission approval, there could be a need for the board to potentially amend the language later, if necessary,” he said.
The specific language is still in the works, Wong added. But the clock is ticking: To get on the June ballot, Wong has to file the measure to the Department of Elections by next Tuesday, Jan. 13, with signatures from three other supervisors.
This did not go over well at Wednesday evening’s gathering at Black Bird Bookstore and Cafe.
The invite was mostly limited to supporters of the park, many volunteers of the Friends of Sunset Dunes group. The goal, the organizer said, is to let supporters “have a place to tell the supervisor why” they love the park and hear the supervisor’s reasoning.
A few park opponents listened outside the backyard entrance. But mostly, people huddled in the 50-degree weather through the hour-long meeting in beanies and puffer jackets, and testified to their love of the nine-month-old park formerly known as the Great Highway.
“Cancer doesn’t stop on workdays,” said Mary, a 40-year Sunset resident who said the park has been essential to her recovery from the disease.
Rebecca, who addressed Wong with a baby strapped to her midsection, described how her toddler now uses “the hammock” or “the octopus” to refer to sections of the former road.
David, a self-described “old guy,” enthused over the multigenerational camaraderie of the new Sunset Dunes skate park.
Former District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio, who supported the closure of the Great Highway and was recalled in the ensuing furor over it, stopped by to express his disapproval of bringing back cars.
Since being appointed by Mayor Daniel Lurie in late November, Wong has faced a constituency divided by the closure of the Upper Great Highway. The division has led to a lawsuit challenging the proposition’s legality, though a judge dismissed the suit earlier this week.
When he took office, Wong vowed to listen to both sides of the debate, and then announced his support for a ballot measure to bring back cars back on work days.
Connie Chan, the District 1 supervisor for the Richmond, was the first to float the idea last April, but now seems ready to let Wong lead the effort.
“It’s his district,” said Robyn Burke, Chan’s legislative aide. “Now there’s an election going on [in District 4], and it’s a different landscape than it was early last year.”
Some suggested that Wong should worry about something else.
“There’s a long list of things that we really need to focus on in this neighborhood,” said Kathryn Grantham, the Black Bird Bookstore owner. “The park is just not one of them.”
For example, had Wong considered how much it would cost to turn the park back into a functional road? Wong said he had looked into it, but doesn’t have exact numbers. He pointed to “a few million” in costs for Sunset Dunes, which the park supporters said was inaccurate.
It cost over $1 million to create Sunset Dunes, about $700,000 of it public dollars. Returning it to a functional road would also come with costs, the park supporters said, like reinstalling traffic lights and removing park facilities like benches and a skate park.
“I expect there will be costs to reconfigure it,” Wong said. But it’s “a tradeoff that is worth it.”
Most of those gathered disagreed, and found the prospect of yet another ballot measure frustrating.
“People who are active around the park also support things like more housing, better public transportation. This is an energized active group that really wants to work with him,” said Heidi Moseson, the event’s moderator. “I appreciate him saying he wants to work with us on this. But it still undermines trust.”
what a waste of our time and money.
Wong is a f#cking moron. We have ample square miles dedicated for automotive traffic. Let’s introduce some calm, peace, and sense of place to a miniscule fragment of our land area.
Authoritarians are the ones that think that democracy is a waste of our time and money.
Bicycle-brains don’t realize everything they consume STILL COMES ON THE BACK OF A TRUCK, REGARDLESS OF THEIR VIRTUE SIGNALING BS.
Retrograde, car-centric worldview
Excellent article. Increased vehicle pollution along this corridor and the loss of human contact and community would be an additional tradeoff besides just the enormous cost itself as a tradeoff. I agree that it is a different landscape now. Jeremy Greco is running for District 4, and it’s interesting to note that he is a supporter of Sunset Dunes.
Because you can’t meet people on the trail right alongside the GH?
“community” is crap branded as art paid for by google lawyers?
It is hard to understand how politicians can support driving over people.
I was going to say more, but I think that covers it, unfortunately.
The best thing this supe can do for himself is to accidentally miss the deadline.
Pure Robert Moses brain-rot.
It’s the 21st Century, dude. Cars and autocrats are out. Democracy, civic connection, and physical activity are in.
Go to Danville and leave us alone.
Danville is more progressive than SF on this issue, shows what some know.
His constituents could care less about community, progress, or nature. It’s 2026, not 1970. If Paris can close it’s two main arteries through the city, we San make do without an oceanfront freeway
Get a job. One that requires work, and a commute. Then talk.
What the heck — I support voting yet again on the permanent closure of the Great Highway and look forward to an even more overwhelming “YES” on the measure.
You shouldn’t get a vote at all. You don’t live in the district.
You aren’t affected.
Seriously?
This is a city wide issue. The ocean views, beach, park etc. belong to all citizens. Get your civics knowledge in order, please.
Bullsht. The ocean exists regardless of the GH. The path alongside the GH exists regardless of K. Skipping CEQA is not legal. Privatizing the commons is not legal. Seriously, are you simple?
The thing that I really appreciate about this debate is that those in the not insignificant overlap between supporter of Sunset Dunes (because of climate) and of tech investors and workers (who are betting the farm on data centers), all because we need to sacrifice for the benefit of the environment.
Out on the road today I saw a deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.
Open the Great Highway close that waste of a park people need to get to the Richmond for economic and medical reason. Isn’t there a great big park called GOLDEN GATE PARK to walk for rehabilitation. Bulldoze that trash and open Highway that is a therapeutic drive and historic for San Franciscans and Tourist for economic growth.
There’s over 1000 miles of roads in SF. Pick one of those to drive on.
That doesn’t address the issue. This is THE major thoroughfare in the area being used for fartsy-yuppie concerns that on a given day are under-utilized by a few hundred, whereas 20,000 use it to commute – and potentially escape a Tsunami, should that disaster be realized. Meanwhile their lies about “GH falling into the ocean” are exactly that – LIES. It costs the same to maintain their asphalt for yuppie purposes, exactly the same, but the traffic is increased on the entire west side and the safety goes down on residential streets as a result. Skipping CEQA is not legal.
Traffic is already bad on 19th Ave. and Sunset Blvd. even with the Great Highway open. It is insane to close any highway with the current traffic situation. Great Highway must be reopened. No neighbor in this community wants it close
Sunset residents are arrogant enough to believe that only their votes and voice matter. Sorry! Secede if you don’t like it. Otherwise STFU!
This concern only affects the west side.
If you want to turn the Castro into an airport, do you put that up for a citywide vote and just pretend their voices don’t matter?
Get a clue. Yuppie class warfare on display.
Yes! It’s how cities work. This isn’t yuppie stuff. It’s a basic understanding of democracy.
If you don’t like it, secede. If you want the tax dollars from the rest of the city you have to take the strings that come with it. This is obvious to everyone but you.
Is anyone proposing to use this ****show as the springboard for ballot prop reform? That we’re going to vote on it again is stupid, but maybe someone can use how obviously stupid it is to reduce the overall stupid number of ballot props we vote on?
Alan Wong is doing a great job listening to all sides while stating very clearly what he supports and why. Not all will agree – but this is no reason to distrust him. There are indeed more important issues to address in the neighborhood – like blunting the advance of gentrification or finding a steady way to fund Muni, for example.
The homes in the neighborhood are worth over a million dollars. You are have been gentrified for decades.
Couldn’t agree more. Not sure if I agree with him, but like the fact that he is stating what he will do in front of folks that disagree. Can you imagine Jackie Fielder holding a meeting in the Mission with a constituency she knows will disagree with her? I like the cut of his jib.
Our main problem with Fielder is that she does not yet have the self confidence to take difficult meetings with people she might disagree with slightly.
The first deviation from the progressive party line as enunciated by city funded nonprofits and public sector labor is tantamount in their minds with siding with the progressives’ worst enemies.
This is an inherently self limiting politics and runs counter to Mamdani who kicked off his campaign asking Trump voters what they were thinking because he had the self confidence to hold his own with people who might disagree with him on some issues.
The best way to “blunt” gentrification in a desirable place (i.e., one with economic, cultural and social opportunity) is to build adequate amounts of housing relatively demand.
SF and much of coastal California (including the Sunset) have consistently refused to do this over the past 5+ decades due to NIMBY-led anti-housing policies.
This is why the median home price in the Sunset district is well north of $1.5M — for basically crap/dingbat homes.
That isn’t happening and Wiener can’t force developers to build no matter how many giveaways and YIMBY distracto-bot lies he makes.
The fact is you’re pushing trickle-down economics.
The average Sunset house is worth a million or more. Are the owners of those houses voluntarily selling at below-market to blunt gentrification?
I thought not. Let’s not fool ourselves. These are millionaires pretending to be “ordinary folks.” They are gentrifiers.
Why don’t Alan focus on building that 50 story building next to the zoo? Since he want to piss people off.
While I support the park, it seems like anybody who wants to win an election in D4 is going to have to at least say that they’re in favor of reopening Great Highway, even if the efforts to do so are doomed to failure.
Like it or not, the Outer Sunset is car-centric for a reason. There simply isn’t the money or political will to improve Muni to the level where this is no longer true.
@3KGP – The “simply isn’t” argument is a tautology. We have seen politicians like James Fang and Barbara Kaufman get a lot of public support by proposing big fixes for transit in the west side, though sadly neither of them were sincere.
This does indicate a great opportunity for Alan Wong (and Connie Chan) to champion greatly-improved public transit service in their districts. Political will only doesn’t exist due to a lack of courage.
So your solution is to watch transit die, well done!
And here we all thought you had billions to right the sinking ship. /s
When was the last time that a supervisor got their hands dirty forcing Muni to improve transit service? Was it Eric Mar with the 5R?
I do not thing that SFMTA as currently configured can solve or improve transit to the point where it is attractive enough to pull mode shift.
A road on weekdays that is traffic-free at weekends seems like a fair compromise. I think we did the same thing on a highway in GGP.
But will the wisdom of Solomon apply in SF, where everyone wants to “win”?
Solomon’s wisdom is recognizing when a middle ground by “splitting the baby” is actually the worst outcome. Opening the park to cars on weekdays isn’t a compromise at all. It’s a park closure, period. To become a roadway again, everything that has made the space a true park (art, benches, recreational features, etc.) must be torn out. Those conditions cannot coexist with vehicle traffic, even part-time.
A roadway is not a living breathing human infant you ghoul.
Calling it “opening the park to cars” ignores history, including the 21st century.
It’s more like opening the highway to pedestrians in an area that just doesn’t need it.
The Sunset and Richmond Districts already have plenty of parks.
How about putting more parks in The Tenderloin, The Mission, and so many other underserved areas of The City?
Or, for the majority of people commenting but not living in the Sunset or Richmond Districts, maybe in your backyard?
The facts haven’t changed. The southern portion of that road is getting eaten by the ocean pretty soon. This isn’t a sustainable highway in the face of climate change, but it makes a nice park.
In the words of a great philosopher ‘Let it go, let it go”
Use to teach at Francis Scott Keyes, at 44th and Kirkham, and the Great Highway, was frequently closed, due to sand dunes caused by the wind. Afterschool, I’d loved to ride by bicycle, that I kept my classroom closet, down the Great Highway and all the way to either, The Cliff House or Lake Merced, before I’d sit down to grade papers, and prep for the next day.
We don’t have to compromise. The vote happened and the park won. Stop being annoying and refighting battles. If you support the park, “compromising” with the Sunset NIMBYs gives you nothing. They won’t fund better transit. They won’t fix NIMBY zoning. They will take and take. There is no compromising with these people.
Good! And I hope that there is a ballot put in place that allows the residents, of the Richmond and Sunset vote on that issue, since it affects those residents.
Are you implying that the residents of the Richmond and Sunset districts did not get to vote on the issue previously? Because I can assure you they did. It is public space that belongs to the entirety of San Francisco, not just the districts closest to it.
They are the only 2 affected.
They are the only 2 who should vote on it.
No! But the exit poll showed that more people that lived out side of that area voted for it then the Sunset and Richmond residents. Sorry, to say but cars are here to stay, and since the closure of the Great Highway, the neighborhood side streets, have becoming intolerable.
sorry friend, that’s not how city governance works. we voted on it as a city.
They did vote on it. If you mean *only* they get to vote on it, then no. The whole city has to pay for it, so the whole city votes. And I’m not paying for their dumb little bypass to get eaten by the ocean in the next decade.
I would like a referendum that the rest of the city should stop funding the Sunset. If our votes don’t matter, you don’t get our money.
Absolutely!
I think that we should reopen the GH because I find urbanism to be the opposite of vIbRaNt.
But I can’t take D4 sovereignty seriously when D5, D6 D9 and D10 have been on the receiving end of the other districts, D4 voting with them consistently, containing all undesirable land uses and social problems in our confines.
Not sure what you mean by “vibrant” , nor “urbanism” … do you have something specific to say about great highway / sunset dunes based on personal experience?
The Great Highway/Sunset Dunes is far from where most San Franciscans live.
Rarely do I bicycle out that way because when I arrive, I’m all sweaty and it is cold, windy and foggy most all of the time and that is unpleasant.
Boosters frequently contrapose their desired outcomes as being vibrant and describe in favorable terms with the status quo which is not vibrant and is unfavorable for a range of reasons.
There is a path along the seawall. There is a sidewalk along the seawall. And there is a broad sand beach. All three are legacy places to walk that existed long before the anti-car urbanist zealots coveted the roadway.
And I do bike out there from the Mission. Maybe reflect on the outcome of the vote and realize that you don’t represent everyone.
“Cycling during work hours should be everyone’s commute” – says the spandex heads who work from home…
maybe you should bike out there more then, it’s delightful.
because your opinion matters more than the 55% of voters who decided to close the highway.
All politics is local, prop K affects the west side negatively and the rest of the city shouldn’t get to vote on that because it doesn’t impact their lives.
The path alongside the GH is suitable for the few hundred who use Sunset Goons Pork.