People celebrate Sunset Dunes’ first anniversary on April 26. San Francisco voters approved closing the Great Highway to vehicles to create the park in 2024. In November, voters will decide if they want to reopen the road to car traffic.

Six years ago, during the frightening and uncertain first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, I sent a text message to then-San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Director Jeffrey Tumlin with a simple idea: What if we temporarily closed the Great Highway to cars?

I represented the Sunset District on the Board of Supervisors, and my constituents were suddenly confined to their homes. Schools and playgrounds were closed, and people needed safe places to walk, exercise and simply get outside. Opening 2 miles of roadway along the Pacific Ocean to people seemed like a modest response to an extraordinary moment. I never imagined that text would help set off a political debate that would divide my neighbors for the next six years, nor could I have predicted my own journey on the issue.

In 2021, as the city reopened, I led the effort to establish a compromise: Cars would return on weekdays, while the Upper Great Highway from Lincoln Way to Sloat Boulevard would remain car-free on weekends and holidays. In 2022, I worked to turn that compromise into a three-year pilot program, the final legislation I sponsored as a supervisor.

Article continues below this ad

The pilot was intended to do more than split the difference between competing sides. It was designed to give San Francisco time to learn. The city would collect data and study transportation impacts while San Franciscans experienced the Great Highway both as a roadway and as recreational open........

© San Francisco Chronicle