A measure to reopen the Great Highway to cars will officially head to voters in San Francisco after the Department of Elections confirmed Thursday that it verified enough signatures for the measure to qualify for the November ballot.
The measure will ask San Francisco voters whether they want to allow cars back on the road during weekdays while keeping it as a park on weekends — an arrangement supporters call the “compromise.” The “Great Highway for Everyone” ballot measure committee collected the signatures and submitted them a few weeks ago.
The compromise went into effect during the COVID-19 pandemic until a citywide vote on Proposition K in November 2024 turned a 2-mile stretch of the Great Highway into a permanent park now called Sunset Dunes.
An effort by some residents on the city’s west side, where a majority voted against the closure, to overturn the road’s shutdown quickly commenced. Voters in District 4, which includes the Sunset District, even recalled former Supervisor Joel Engardio, largely because of his staunch support for creating Sunset Dunes.
Now, the issue will once again be in the hands of San Francisco voters.
Opposition lines up
Supporters of keeping the road as a park belong to the group “Friends of Sunset Dunes.” The group says that if the measure passes, the park’s amenities and infrastructure will have to be removed to accommodate cars.
“This measure would destroy San Francisco’s coastal park, requiring the city to tear out every park feature, and kill the 60% of park visits which happen on weekdays,” Friends of Sunset Dunes President Lucas Lux said in a statement.
The group says closing the park could cost millions of dollars because the city would have to remove infrastructure such as picnic areas and fitness equipment and reinstall streetlights. The city Controller’s Office will release a full analysis of the potential cost before the election.
Several supervisors, including Board President Rafael Mandelman, Myrna Melgar, Matt Dorsey, Danny Sauter, Bilal Mahmood and Stephen Sherrill, oppose the measure.
“The voters of San Francisco already voted to allow San Franciscans to adapt to climate change in a positive and joyful way that is to the benefit of all,” Melgar said in a statement. “This cynical and expensive attempt to destroy a beautiful park will fail.”
The citizen-led effort to place a measure on the ballot overturning Proposition K follows a failed attempt by current District 4 Supervisor Alan Wong to get a similar measure on the June ballot. In January, he did not meet the required threshold of signatures from his colleagues on the Board of Supervisors to place the measure before voters.
Wong supports the citizen-led initiative.
“I trust voters to make an informed decision now that they have more experience, more information, and a fuller understanding of how these different approaches affect our neighborhoods and our city,” he said in a statement after the signatures were submitted.
