The never-ending battle over the Great Highway continues.
Supporters of Sunset Dunes park, the open space that in 2025 replaced the coastal road, filed a lawsuit Friday to challenge the legality of a new ballot petition seeking to convert the park back into a road during weekdays.
The lawsuit alleges that the petition, which would be the fourth attempt to put the issue back on the ballot, that has been circulated for signatures contains a number of “false and misleading statements” and “unlawfully deprived” voters of their right to be “sufficiently informed about what they were being asked to sign and ultimately vote on.”
They ask that the measure not appear on the Nov. 3 ballot.
This is a continuation of a five-year altercation seeking to decide the fate of the Great Highway, which has involved multiple lawsuits and last year led to the recall of Sunset District supervisor Joel Engardio. The Friends of Sunset Dunes — they support the park, of course — have created a list titled “Failed attempts to kill Sunset Dunes” with 13 items.
Today’s lawsuit “goes beyond sort of the normal hyperbole of a political campaign. These are purely factual statements that voters deserve to have accurate information about,” said Zach Lipton, a volunteer and board member of the Friends of Sunset Dunes nonprofit.
The lawsuit names John Arntz, San Francisco’s director of elections, as the defendant, and proponents of the potential initiative measure — including former SFPD commander Richard Corriea and Great Highway for Everyone — as parties to the suit.
City Attorney’s Office spokesperson Jen Kwart said, “We will review the petition and respond in court.”
Corriea said simply: “I have no comment.”
Great Highway for Everyone’s deadline for collecting some 10,000 valid signatures to attempt to bring the road back is July 6. Even if the measure goes through, however, it will be an uphill battle: San Franciscans voted 55-45 to close the road.
The lawsuit alleges that the group’s petition misrepresents its claim to “restore the balanced approach that was working effectively before Proposition K,” the 2024 measure that created the park.
That “balanced approach” was a compromise in which cars would be forced off the road starting at Friday at noon. But, the lawsuit argues, the would-be measure would give cars an extra six hours of road time, only closing the street at 6 p.m. on Fridays.
“That removes all daylight hours of Friday afternoon. So people who work weekends or otherwise can’t use the park on weekends wouldn’t have really any meaningful access to the park under their measure,” Lipton said.
More than half of all visits to Sunset Dunes during its first year were on weekdays, according to the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department.
The petition also claims that the space “remains suitable for dual use,” but Lipton argued that “a part-time road closure is different than a park.” Bringing private vehicles to the space under the new measure would make it hard to install any park features there, like the art installations and exercise equipment that’s currently there, the complaint argues.
Among other things, the complaint alleges that the petition falsely claims Sunset Dunes slows emergency response times because emergency vehicles need to use alternate routes. But those vehicles still have access to the park, according to the complaint.
It also alleges that the petition falsely states that the Upper Great Highway was “a critical coastal evacuation route” in the event of an earthquake or wildfire and the opening of Sunset Dunes eliminated it. That’s not true according to a 2024 letter from the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management, which states that “The Upper Great Highway is not a designated emergency evacuation route and closing it to private vehicles will not change our existing emergency response protocols.”
“I’m confident that San Franciscans would never vote to destroy one of our most visited parks,” said Lipton. Sunset Dunes saw over 1.7 million visits in its first year, according to the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department.
“So it’s troubling that people opposed to the park would turn to misinformation about what their measure would do, rather than just laying it out factually.”
