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By Cecilia M. Vega, Wyatt Buchanan
San Francisco Chronicle
Originally Published April 14, 2007
Cars would be banned from a stretch of Golden Gate Park’s main road on Saturdays for six months of the year under a groundbreaking agreement reached Friday that could end a long-running and acrimonious debate over vehicle usage in San Francisco’s largest park.
The compromise, which will require approval from the Board of Supervisors, came after more than 15 hours of negotiations in City Hall brokered by Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office. It would make a stretch of roadway off limits to vehicles from the first Saturday of April through the last Saturday of September every year. The deal also covers a smaller area than is currently closed off to cars on Sundays and makes the ban permanent, scrapping a proposed six-month trial period.
The agreement is expected to be heard by a Board of Supervisors committee on Monday and if it wins approval could be voted on by the full board Tuesday. The deal also must be cleared by the director of the Mayor’s Office of Disability.
"Today was a victory for our shared values," Newsom said in a statement Friday. "Golden Gate Park is our city’s treasure, and this proposal allows everyone to enjoy it with minimal disruption."
The compromise comes after years of arguing — and two ballot measures — in which bicycle activists and environmentalists who pushed for the closure were pitted against advocates for the disabled, park neighbors and representatives of some of the park’s most popular attractions, like the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum and California Academy of Sciences.
The agreement, which would take effect on May 26, leaves John F. Kennedy Drive open to cars from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. beginning at the east end of the park to just west of the concourse entrance for the de Young and the Academy of Sciences. The closure extends along JFK Drive to Transverse Drive, which is just west of where Highway 1 crosses over the road.
Because the closure is smaller in scope than a proposal both sides debated at a City Hall hearing on Monday, the board would be allowed to substitute the new compromise and bypass a two-week period for public notice, as well as avoid another public hearing.
Proponents of the Saturday closure have long argued that banning cars from a portion of the park would make the space safer for families and children, as well as cut down on vehicle pollution. Some also said that barring cars could encourage people to drive less in general.
But opponents have said that road closures would impact disabled persons’ access to the park and could limit the number of visitors to the museum, the Conservatory of Flowers and other cultural institutions located in the park.
On Friday, both sides said they were glad the drawn-out and often bitter debate over the issue had ended.
"It’s a compromise, which means that no one got what they wanted, but it is something everyone says they can live with," said Ron Miguel, president of the Planning Association for the Richmond, a group of about 1,500 households in that neighborhood that strongly opposed the closure on the grounds that it would cause traffic mayhem on their streets as weekend park visitors grab coveted parking spots.
In 2000, two competing ballot measures that would have restricted cars in the park on Saturdays were defeated by wide margins. Last year, supervisors revived the plan and approved a six-month trial period, which Newsom vetoed.
The city then commissioned a study on a possible closure, which found that more people walked, biked and roller-skated in the park on Sundays than Saturdays — and that traffic on residential streets around the park increased on Sundays but only slightly. But neither side could agree on what conclusions should be drawn from the findings.
Supervisor Jake McGoldrick again reignited the debate by reintroducing the ban in February.
Advocates in favor of the closure called Friday’s compromise a win-win, even though it means the 1.7 miles of roadway initially proposed for closure will be reduced by half.
"We got half the space for half the time, but what we did get is a permanent solution," said Leah Shaum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
The negotiations began Thursday evening, lasted until 5 a.m. Friday, and resumed that afternoon. Newsom’s chief of staff, Phil Ginsburg, brokered the talks between the two sides, who were kept separated in different rooms near the mayor’s office. Newsom also spent about two hours Friday shuttling between the rooms hoping to reach a deal before the weekend.
Those in the talks included representatives from the bike coalition, Sierra Club, Walk San Francisco, neighborhood activists and officials from various cultural institutions located in the park.
A major concern of de Young Museum representatives was whether delivery trucks would have access to the museum’s loading dock. The dock is off of JFK Drive past Tea Garden Drive, the proposed closure area. The compromise would allow delivery vehicles — which carry supplies for special events and the cafeteria at the museum — access on the closed road.
The parties in the compromise also agreed to not try to pursue additional closures in the park for at least five years.
The deal also includes a plan to improve a section of Middle Drive West, which is already closed to vehicles on Saturdays but is not popular with cyclists and pedestrians, by repaving the road and adding amenities such as a concessions stand.
E-mail the writers at cvega@sfchronicle.com and wbuchanan@sfchronicle.com.
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April 20th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I was so pleased to learn that my votes regarding GG
P are absolutely meaningless to the City Government.
I am pleased to know that noone cares what the park closer does to the small businesses in the Richmond and Sunset.
And I must assume that if the six month closer on saturday works, the sunday will also be pushed back to six months only.