{"id":406405,"date":"2026-01-14T10:01:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T10:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/406405\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T10:01:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T10:01:23","slug":"s-f-measure-to-bring-cars-back-to-great-highway-fails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/406405\/","title":{"rendered":"S.F. measure to bring cars back to Great Highway fails"},"content":{"rendered":"

District 4 Supervisor Alan Wong\u2019s promise to reopen the Great Highway<\/a> to cars via a ballot measure turned out to be unsafe at any speed. The blame for this political lemon, according to Wong\u2019s fellow supervisors, falls on Wong.<\/p>\n

At the 5 p.m. deadline to submit the measure, Wong was short by one signature; Department of Elections staff moments ago confirmed that there would be no ballot measure. <\/p>\n

San Francisco has one of the lowest ballot thresholds in California, requiring only four legislators to sign a measure onto the ballot. But only Wong himself, Supervisor Connie Chan and Supervisor Chyanne Chen signed the dotted line<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Supervisor Shamann Walton \u2014 who did not favor Prop. K of 2024, which transformed the Great Highway into a park \u2014 today opted against joining Wong\u2019s effort.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to ballot measures, my priorities are to advocate for things that serve District 10 residents and the city as a whole,\u201d said Walton via text. \u201cThere are several important issues and critical priorities on the June ballot, and I do not want us to be distracted by a measure that was not well thought-out, introduced at the last minute and constantly changing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The outcome was not surprising: Wong\u2019s rollout of the proposal \u2014 he failed to lobby fellow supervisors until the 11th hour, and purportedly did not do so in person \u2014 left both supporters and opponents of the ballot measure befuddled. \u201cI wish we had been approached and asked to have conversations about this much earlier,\u201d said one City Hall insider close to the process.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d think he\u2019d line up his votes before talking to the press. It\u2019s a self-inflicted mistake,\u201d said political consultant David Ho. \u201cIf this doesn\u2019t get on, it\u2019s quite embarrassing, but not a total loss. He could still say, \u2018I represented my constituents\u2019 sentiment.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Monday afternoon, Wong defended his approach.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"OfficeAt the strike of 5 p.m. on Jan. 13, personnel at the Department of Elections declared that there would be no ballot measure to reopen the Great Highway. Photo by Junyao Yang<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been very transparent \u2026 It\u2019s very simple legislation. People can easily take a position on it,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve shared the legislation multiple times with other offices and the media. There should be no confusion where people should stand.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The ballot measure would have reintroduced cars onto the Great Highway on weekdays, while keeping it a pedestrian- and bicycle-only park during the weekends.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Wong significantly altered even that basic proposal just a day before the deadline. He added amendments on Monday that he said were proposed by Chan. One would have allowed cars back onto the Great Highway not only on weekdays, but also possibly on weekends under \u201cexceptional circumstances.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those circumstances were not defined, and Wong did not specify how diverting hundreds of adults and children off a bike- and walkway would work in practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there are exceptional circumstances, such as if there\u2019s unprecedented congestion, closure of the Chain of Lakes, or some giant concert happening, that could cause issues for the neighborhood,\u201d Wong said on Tuesday afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chan\u2019s district, the Richmond, has been impacted in past years by increased traffic during concerts like Outside Lands in Golden Gate Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TwoAlan Wong presents a map of traffic injuries to the press on Jan. 8, 2026, a few hours after he first sent the proposal to other supervisors. Photo by Junyao Yang. <\/p>\n

Supervisors \u2014 even Chan<\/a>, who decided to sign on \u2014 said they had received little prior communication from Wong to seek their support.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chan only offered her support on Sunday. Chen did so 20 minutes before the deadline. And all the supervisors, sympathetic or not, first received a draft proposal last Thursday, six days before the deadline.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chen\u2019s office only received the final draft \u2014\u00a0containing the language that would appear on the ballot \u2014 at 4:15 p.m. on Monday, about an hour after the press had received its copy.<\/p>\n

Wong, for his part, said supporting the measure should not have been controversial. \u201cThe bottom line is: It\u2019s a six-page document. It\u2019s pretty straightforward,\u201d he said. Wong said it should not make \u201cthat big of a difference how soon people see\u201d the final draft.\u00a0<\/p>\n

City Hall insiders were, across the board, perplexed by that assertion: Reopening the Great Highway and shutting down Sunset Dunes is a political minefield. Lobbying fellow supervisors for their support on such a contentious issue requires tact \u2014 and time. It might also require facetime, meaning in-person discussions. Supervisors say that didn\u2019t happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The last-minute amendments were also problematic. If Chain of Lakes Drive were congested on a Saturday, for example, the general manager of the Recreation and Parks Department \u2014 which has authority over the Great Highway, not SFMTA \u2014 would have been able to make the call to open the park to cars, Wong said on Monday.<\/p>\n

Transit professionals viewed Wong\u2019s proposal with dismay.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be such a mess. What an awful situation to create,\u201d said Sarah Jones, the former planning director of the SFMTA and a major player in planning and enacting car-free JFK Drive<\/a>. \u201cWho\u2019s gonna tell the park director to do that?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Advocates for reopening the Great Highway may opt to gather signatures from citywide voters for a potential November ballot measure. \u201cWe have an opportunity to listen to people on East side and make our case to them,\u201d said Lisa Arjes, a major benefactor of the effort to recall Supervisor Joel Engardio after his championing of removing cars from the Great Highway. <\/p>\n

Walton said he\u2019d still favor a ballot measure regarding the Great Highway in November. <\/p>\n

\u201cI continue to support a compromise from the community around the Great Highway,\u201d wrote Walton, whose chief of staff, Natalie Gee, is running against Wong. \u201cI look forward to supporting the community-led process to get a measure on the ballot in November that will be well thought-out, not rushed and not disjointed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such a measure would have been politically advantageous for Wong in June, however: Wong is up for election that month after being appointed to the vacant District 4 seat by Mayor Daniel Lurie<\/a> in November. His face could have graced paid campaign mailers for the ballot measure, and those who turned out to vote for the measure might also have voted for him<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nearly two-thirds<\/a> of District 4 voters inveighed against taking cars off the Great Highway in 2024, even as nearly 55 percent of voters, citywide, favored doing so.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s trying to appease his constituents,\u201d Jones said. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s about putting something forward\u2026 but knowing that it\u2019s not going to work. He might know full well \u2014 because of the way he did it \u2014 it\u2019s gonna crash and burn.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"District 4 Supervisor Alan Wong\u2019s promise to reopen the Great Highway to cars via a ballot measure turned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,2420,3,6107,23735,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-406405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-government","tag-news","tag-parks","tag-sunset","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}