Letter to the Editor: Climate Change a Factor in UGH Closure

Editor:

Supervisor Joel Engardio has been an energetic, caring and communicative leader for District 4, and he deserves to continue to represent the Outer Sunset. I am sorry to learn that he is facing a recall, initiated by voters who are unhappy with the outcome of the Proposition K vote.

In fact, this recall would do nothing to slow or reverse the democratic decision of San Francisco voters to convert the Upper Great Highway (UGH) into a permanent park. The recall is intended to punish Joel Engardio, but the reality is that the residents of District 4 would lose a great representative who has made building local community and supporting local businesses the focus of his tenure on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Supervisor Engardio has explained that a group of constituents first came to him with the idea of a permanent park after the closure of the UGH to car traffic during the pandemic. The closure opened up a safe space for local residents to walk, run, skate and ride in the fresh ocean air. Our neighborhood woke up to the revelation that this beautiful space that had always been reserved for cars and trucks could come alive for local residents as a place to exercise and connect and could be a new coastal retreat for the city-at-large.

Of course, making this conversion is opposed by drivers who are accustomed to moving quickly past the Outer Sunset neighborhood on their way to points south or north, and changing the car route will cost those travelers a few more minutes. There are also locals who fear that a change of this magnitude will have negative consequences, imagined or unforeseen.

But the reality is that climate change is here, and coastal erosion is here. Residents who have lived in this area for a while have seen a part of residential Pacifica fall into the ocean. We have seen a huge parking lot at Sloat Boulevard fall into the ocean. The road connecting the UGH to Highway 35 that points south is already slated to be closed to cars because of coastal erosion. What we have here is a lemons-to-lemonade situation. Car traffic must be diverted east because of that road closure no matter what, and a majority of San Franciscans saw that the inconvenience was an opportunity to create a huge new recreation space between the Outer Sunset neighborhood and Ocean Beach.

Joel Engardio listens to his constituents, and he has also been a leader in moving the Great Highway Park closer to reality. No, we don’t know what may happen when the park is established full time, and we may encounter or observe problems. But government is for identifying problems and finding solutions to those problems.

This formerly neglected stretch of road on the edge of North America, a place where we are so lucky to live, deserves the attention we are paying to it. I hope my neighbors will join me in supporting Supervisor Joel Engardio as we move into the era of a Great Highway Park.

Emily Faxon