San Francisco voters will, in all likelihood, once again weigh in on the Great Highway at the polls: A petition to reopen a section of the former coastal road to cars has garnered at least 15,626 signatures, according to its organizers, more than enough to qualify for the November ballot.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Organizers with Great Highway for Everyone turned in boxes of signed petitions to the city on Monday. The Department of Elections now has 30 days to verify the signatures and, if substantiated, the Great Highway for Everyone Act will face a citywide vote on Nov. 3.<\/p>\n
Right before filing the signatures, proponents of the measure, including Richard Correia, Albert Chow, District 4 Supervisor Alan Wong and grassroots volunteers, stood outside of the Department of Elections in City Hall. Wong said it\u2019s the most \u201ccontentious\u201d issue in his neighborhood, and that the rest of the city did not realize its importance to the Westside when it was last at the ballot box in 2024.<\/p>\n
Then, San Franciscans voted<\/a> 55 to 45 to remove cars from part of the Great Highway, turning it into Sunset Dunes Park. The new ballot measure seeks to reverse that change, opening the highway to car traffic again on weekdays, and keeping Sunset Dunes Park open only on weekends.<\/p>\n The measure\u2019s backers, who include District 4 supervisor Alan Wong, call that a \u201ccompromise<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The intense park v. highway battle<\/a> \u2014 which highway supporters have repeatedly lost \u2014 has refused to go away, playing out in court<\/a>, neighborhood divisions,<\/a> and Wong\u2019s failed attempt to legislatively<\/a> get the issue on the ballot in the June election.\u00a0<\/p>\n Albert Chow, a small business owner who ran in the District 4 primary against Wong and still plans to run in November, has doggedly led efforts against the park since its inception. He said he personally gathered several hundred signatures to get the measure on the November ballot.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re seeking a fair balance between having fun, but also the real everyday need to get to work, to do chores, take kids to school, take parents to the hospital, to see family, to shop, to all the things that are just necessary in life,\u201d Chow said of the measure.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Chow said the campaign verified many of the 15,626 signatures along the way and is confident that it can clear the 10,582 signature requirement \u2014 about 2 percent of city voters \u2014 \u201chandily.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n A pro-park group is hoping to stop the effort, however: It filed a lawsuit<\/a> last week alleging that the petition<\/a> includes several \u201cfalse or misleading statements<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Jim Ross, a political consultant, said it will be challenging for the Great Highway for Everyone \u2014 the park already exists, and they are asking to remove what many see as an amenity.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey have a really challenging path ahead of them to get this measure passed,\u201d Ross said. \u201cI think that they have to convince the rest of the city to shut down a park, which is very difficult.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The campaign will need to rally the entire Westside, maximizing the Sunset and Richmond votes, Ross said. Ross said that the lawsuit also \u201cmuddies\u201d the clear and direct messaging that passing this measure would need.\u00a0<\/p>\n The park has become a popular destination, and the city has invested in it. The city has installed a number of public art works and other amenities, like hammocks and a skate park<\/a>. In the two years since voters first made the promenade a permanent park, it\u2019s seen an average of 4,900 people each day<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ross said that no matter which direction the measure goes, it won\u2019t be the last San Francisco hears about the Great Highway. He likened it to the 1990s battles over the Central Freeway<\/a>, which went to the ballot three times<\/a> and took a decade to resolve.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt has a political potency,\u201d Ross said, and \u201cprobably won\u2019t go away anytime soon.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Francisco voters will, in all likelihood, once again weigh in on the Great Highway at the polls:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[976,101,103,102,104,106,105,18069],"class_list":["post-388505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-richmond","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sunset"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}