On November 5th, San Francisco voters can decide to create a permanent public park along Ocean Beach. Ocean Beach is currently a city park, but our enjoyment of the beach is limited by the four-lane highway which runs through it, severing the City from our western shore.
Proposition K will amend the City’s Parks Code to remove private vehicles from Upper Great Highway after the weekend-only car-free open space pilot ends in 2025. This will allow the four-lane highway to be transformed into a two-mile public promenade, like the JFK Promenade in Golden Gate Park, and add amenities like benches and accessibility improvements to further public enjoyment of the park and open it to more San Franciscans and visitors.
Prop K will allow emergency vehicle access to Upper Great Highway as needed. Lower Great Highway, which is outside the park, will also continue to allow private cars.
Livable City first piloted a people-oriented Ocean Beach Park in 2009 when it brought Sunday Streets to Great Highway once or twice yearly for a decade. The road was made car-free as a pandemic emergency measure, and it attracted an estimated two million visitors between April 2020 and May 2022. Today about 4,000 people visit the park every weekend, making it one of San Francisco’s most-visited.
Opponents argue that the measure will be burdensome to car commuters. However Upper Great Highway’s reliability as a commute route is already limited, and becoming more so with time. Sand moving onto the highway from the beach and dunes makes it impassible to cars over 60 days per year. Erosion of the coastal bluffs south of Sloat Boulevard will necessitate ending the highway at Sloat and removing the portion between Sloat and Skyline as early as next year, as part of an already approved plan. It’s time we reclaimed Ocean Beach for people and nature and focus on better ways to get people around, including more walking, cycling, and transit options for San Francisco’s Westside neighborhoods.
Access to water makes people happier and healthier, and we’re naturally drawn to it. A century of highway and industrial development has degraded our Bay and Ocean, limiting public access and enjoyment of our waterfront. The Embarcadero Freeway was removed in 1992 to create the public promenade we love today. In 2001, Chrissy Field was transformed into a popular shoreline national park. Candlestick Point became the first urban state recreation area in 1977, and another section of India Basin shoreline will become a City park this fall. Creating Ocean Beach Park will be a big step forward in the popular movement to reclaim San Francisco’s shoreline for people and nature.
Let’s keep moving in the right direction. Vote Yes on Prop K to make Ocean Beach Park a reality.
