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.”
Seems pretty clear that they’re not being truthful and fearmongering in order to get more signatures. I’m glad that’s not legal.
It’s San Francisco. The issue will be on the ballot countless more times.
I’m really amazed that certain folks haven’t jumped on this band wagon and included a bunch of proposals and AI images of 50 story buildings full of luxury condos.
Either it goes on this ballot or some other future ballot. Just get it over with.
Independent Traffic Study has found Closing GREAT HIGHWAY BETWEEN LINCOLN WAY TO SLOAT has moderately increased traffic near the avenues, reduced turn time for some Muni that goes near LOWER GREAT HIGHWAY, more gridlocks 45th and 47th avenue, and enable more cyclist to run through stop signs (giving more anti car people more entitlement) to cause harm to people use great highway to go work, school and shop local. Independent Traffic Study was done when there no politician activity around.
The group and anti car political group should be dismissed and pay back court, damages and lawyers fees. Anti car political pro park group, lux pretty much falsely say the ” which is false. On the side” great highway belongs to all” this includes working class drivers which is true. pro park also said 3/4 sunset dist supported closed great highway which is false
Love to know where the numbers for Sunset Dunes came from. “More than half came on weekdays” and especially” 1.7 million visitors the first year”.
Pre Prop K Re& Park et all were using number of visitors derived from a survey done by SFMTA. Turns out the survey was subcontract did out to a firm with stipulations about how the numbers were to be arrived at average number of days, different climate, different time of day, etc. and yet reports came out that the firm that was hired decided to take a shortcut and basically did it the whole survey and based all numbers over the survey that was done and counts derived over one weekend during prime time and prime weather, etc. proof that statistics site, garbage, and garbage out and you can quote statistics to prove anything anyway those numbers were used by Rec & Parkin all materials.
Considering sunset dunes is an open Boardwalk consisting of two closed roadways with easy access from all points and an access also to Ocean Beach and all of the Ocean Beach access anybody traveling to Ocean Beach or any of those areas would not necessarily be visiting sunset dunes, but just crossing the roadway, so I wonder how counts we’re done considering there’s no entrance or exit and anybody crossing the road would be counted and could be counted any number of times. That’s why numbers don’t mean much unless you state very clearly how they came to be, and what kind of analysis was done of the measure.
I’m a 2nd gen Sunset native & the Great Highway WAS considered an evacuation route. I tried searching for it a couple years back & there was no trace of that info on the web. It’s not something people made up. If there’s an emergency and everyone needs to evacuate, all exit routes need to be available. Common sense. I hope it never becomes necessary.
Also, according to my understanding, prop K was NOT “a measure that created a park”. Prop K closed the road to cars. There’s no language in that measure to “create a park”.
I think it’s rather “tRumpian” to stop a ballot measure. Doubt it will pass anyway but don’t try to interfere with the democratic process Dunes Lovers!
@Justicity – Due to the risk of tsunamis, our designated evacuation routes go inland, and this is documented on the web and with signs around the city. You claim otherwise, with no evidence.
Also, the legal text of Prop K very specifically mentions establishing a “public open recreation space” including in its very title, and is in fact an amendment to the city’s Parks Code. The land has always been Recreation and Parks and Prop K directs that department to keep motor vehicles out. The legal text is readily found on the web, and in the Voter Information Pamphlet for 2024.
Speaking of “tRumpian,” you would have us believe one assertion based on no evidence, and to believe another assertion that is readily disproven with evidence.
Are you kidding me. These guys lied through their teeth and those lies appeared in the voter hand book. Talk about misleading voters. Decreased sand removal decreased expense. If anything it’s had more sand removal done and it is costing us a lot more since the road closed. My question is why can’t the park go into the section that was already slated to close. Basically right across the street. What was the rush to remove the stop light? I’ve never ever seen the city move that fast in my life.
I don’t know of any untruths in the new petition. What are they afraid of. I think many more voters are keenly aware of what is going here and wouldn’t vote for it again. Especially on the East side. The west side spoke clearly, by a very good margin, that they oppose the closing of the road. I know of residents who have left the city because of this acrimony.
I remember seeing some very rusted traffic signals out on the Great Highway. Maybe they were removed quickly because they were about to fall and potentially cause an injury.
sure that work to replace the old lights have been on the docket for quite awhile. Then all of a sudden in a day or two after closing the lights are gone. I”m sure they are sitting in a maintenance yard and could be reused. But I really don’t care. They removed the lights and put in all these “temporary” structures to make it harder to reopen. I don’t care if it cost the city or “sunset dunes” millions to return the road just do it.
Worth noting a few things for anyone reading this:
This lawsuit isn’t about a ballot measure. There is no ballot measure yet. It’s a challenge to the petition summary, which is a pretty standard delay tactic in California politics.
And a quick reality check on the ‘destroying Sunset Dunes’ framing: Prop K only did one thing: it closed the Upper Great Highway to private vehicles. That’s it. The official ballot text (page 156 of the voter guide) https://www.sf.gov/sites/default/files/2024-09/N24_VIP_EN.pdf
contains zero mention of creating a park, installing art pieces, building a skate area, or adding any of the current pop‑ups. None of that was formally voted on by the public.
It’s also worth remembering that Sunset Dunes never went through the process that actual San Francisco parks go through no architectural renderings, no environmental review, no funding documentation, no Rec & Park capital plan, and no community design meetings before breaking ground. The road was closed first, and the ‘park’ narrative was layered on afterward.
So the flowery language about ‘one of our most visited parks’ is coming directly from the group that created the Sunset Dunes concept not from any neutral legal designation or voter‑approved plan. Sunset Dunes isn’t a legally designated park, and the current amenities were never part of Prop K’s text.
People can still read the petition themselves, ask questions, and decide whether they think the summary is accurate.
@Wendy Liu – The ballot text you allude to specifically states that it’s to create “public open recreation space” by amending the Parks Code. Since the land is already Rec & Parks jurisdiction, there was no need to change anything like that, simply to stipulate that Rec & Parks has to restrict cars.
Afraid of losing? LOL!
I doubt it. It will probably get more support than it did the first time around in 2024. Maybe people don’t want to waste the time, energy, money, and paper for yet another vote on the same issue.
Are Pro park afraid S.F voters will realize it’s not as popular as they claim, after Engardio and Lucas Lux snuck it on the ballot at the 11th Hour to qualify?
I have to ask where are the millions of people they claim using this park in the photo? I also wonder if this photo looks like a park compared to Golden Gate Park that is next to the highway or Sutro Park above the Cliff House? Another question that might be more complicated is with SFUSD, SFMTA ,and SF Park and Rec millions in dollars in debt, with announced city employees layoffs, why are they closing a road that was used by 17,000 to 20,000 vehicles a day and calling it a park.
Another lie. All you guys do is lie. SFMTA has the traffic data that show it was more like 4,000 drivers a day during the ‘compromise’ weekday-use-only statistic. That’s the only stat that actually matters, given (a) it shows that covid/WFH dramatically changed the demand to use that route and (b) most users either changed their commute or stopped commuting or changed mode. Rec and Park owns and administers this land parcel (to counteract another lie someone posted—it’s not like a bunch of Tech execs own it or even run it). Rec and Park decided that Sunset Dunes is the highest and best use of this land parcel. You guys really need to move on with your lives and accept that the electorate has spoken, repeatedly, and have voiced their preference to turn this 100-year-old road into a *permanent* park.
This is entirely rich considering the lies and misstatements of verifiable fact that went into the push to create the cement road “park” with private corporate donors in the first place. Yuppie liars and Google lawyers need to GTFO of the Sunset, they’re not from here and they don’t represent us. Most days the road is completely empty. They think they can own our public commons with private control, and they won’t stop at the coast either. They are a cancer on SF.
@Mitch – Feel free to substantiate your claim of “lies and misstatements.” Otherwise you’re just parroting the unsubstantiated false and misleading anti-park campaign blather which prompted this lawsuit in the first place.
You are claiming that the petition contains misleading anti-park blather. Kinda of funny you asking for open it people to substantiate the claims. I’ve asked SFMTA et al to do the same thing and I get nothing back.
You say the petition has lies and misstatements can you please substantiate that claim?
Your little park is an asphalt road with some crappy “art” installations and a skate park. All of which could have gone onto the southern extension.
We have caught SFMTA and RNP lying about the numbers and they still make these BS claims.
@Micahel [sic] Regan – Did you read the article these comments are about? The very first link goes to the lawsuit under discussion, which enumerates the objectively false and misleading statements.
Well, removing that “artwork” would be a great reason for anyone to support this admirable grassroots ballot initiative!
This road closure is all about further lifting property values. It also gives control over public space to an untrustworthy “nonprofit” run by a Google Cloud lawyer.
Their initiative was snuck onto the ballot in a very unsavory fashion. The important discussions with constituents were shirked by four supervisors who know better.
The figures on attendance have absolutely no basis in reality. Every person who crosses the road to the beach “visits” the park, but there is absolutely no way to know how many actually use the closed road.
One does not see many people there on weekdays.
@Harry. – Speaking of “artwork” did you see that the pro-road petitioners use a graphic with the silhouettes of carfree people to sell a road filled with cars?