{"id":397940,"date":"2026-07-14T14:34:56","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T14:34:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/397940\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T14:34:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T14:34:56","slug":"great-highway-reopening-price-tag-more-than-10-million-records-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/397940\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Highway Reopening Price Tag More Than $10 Million, Records Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

City records show estimated costs of signal replacement and repaving if a proposed ballot measure passes in November.<\/p>\n

Jul 12, 2026<\/p>\n

Updated Jul 13, 2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Visitors seen during the grand opening of the Sunset Dunes Park along the former Upper Great Highway, in San Francisco, on April 12, 2025. City records show estimated costs of signal replacement and repaving if a proposed ballot measure passes in November. \u00a0(Stephen Lam\/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Lucas Lux, president of Friends of Sunset Dunes, said it\u2019s the \u201copposite of what we should be doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me put it this way: If you want to spend $14 million of taxpayer money to rip out a park, you have to ask yourself why. What do you get out of it?\u201d Lux said, referring to additional costs from city departments to another publication.<\/p>\n

SFMTA would see the highest cost in the proposal. Around $10 million would include costs for restoring signals from Judah Street and Sloat Boulevard and replacing signals at Lincoln and the Great Highway, according to emails that KQED reviewed between Supervisor Myrna Melgar and a Recreation and Parks Department official.<\/p>\n

\"\"A bicyclist rides through Sunset Dunes, a park on the former Great Highway roadway, in San Francisco\u2019s Sunset neighborhood on April 9, 2026. (Beth LaBerge\/KQED)<\/p>\n

Recreation and Parks would foot a cost of $750,000 to remove park elements and repave streets, according to spokesperson Tamara Barak Aparton.<\/p>\n

Mission Local, which originally reported<\/a> on the cost, said it could be even greater. SFMTA would carry additional costs that would bring the price tag to $13.75 million, according to that publication.<\/p>\n

Michael Roccaforte, a spokesperson for SFMTA, did not confirm or deny any figures, but referred KQED to the Controller\u2019s office, which will prepare a financial analysis for the ballot if the measure qualifies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019ll be the most detailed and accurate look at the situation,\u201d Roccaforte wrote.<\/p>\n

Proponents of the proposed measure announced this month that it had collected enough signatures to qualify for the Nov. 3 election, but election officials have to verify the signatures before it\u2019s officially placed on the ballot.<\/p>\n

Some in favor of the road\u2019s reopening have contended that it would help residents get to and from places they go and that traffic would be eased.<\/p>\n

Lux said that data doesn\u2019t support road supporters\u2019 main concern about traffic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no traffic issue,\u201d Lux said.<\/p>\n

Last year, SFMTA presented a mixed bag of traffic trends in a report <\/a>following the stretch\u2019s closure. \u201cSome roadways are busier and more congested,\u201d the agency said in July 2025. Lower Great Highway and Chain of Lakes Drive saw hundreds more daily drivers, according to data.<\/p>\n

But the traffic on the Upper Great Highway between Lincoln and Fulton decreased by 30%. Other analyses \u2014 one <\/a>in 2025, another <\/a>this year \u2014 also showed a little bit of each. During rush hour, the Chronicle found that there had been more congestion, while The Frisc reported that a handful of streets saw less congestion.<\/p>\n

Friends of Sunset Dunes has legally challenged the ballot petition, saying it has \u201cmaterially misled\u201d voters about statements related to traffic of emergency vehicles and having safer transit. Also named in the lawsuit is John Arntz, the director of elections for San Francisco.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City records show estimated costs of signal replacement and repaving if a proposed ballot measure passes in November.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-397940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397940","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=397940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}