San Francisco just fundamentally changed how people get around the Westside. It wasn't a quiet change. If you've driven down the coast recently, you already know the tension. The Upper Great Highway is basically the city's most beautiful shortcut, or its most controversial park, depending on who you ask at the Sunday farmers market. With the passage of Prop K in the November 2024 election, the debate transitioned from "what if" to "when."
The road is closing. Permanently.
Well, eventually. It’s not like the city crews showed up at midnight on election day to rip up the asphalt. But the path is set. Prop K authorizes the City of San Francisco to transform the two-mile stretch of the Upper Great Highway—the part between Lincoln Way and Sloat Boulevard—into a permanent oceanfront park. It’s a massive shift for a city that’s already struggling with its identity and its infrastructure.
What Prop K Actually Changes on the Ground
For years, we’ve been living in this weird limbo. During the pandemic, the city closed the Great Highway to cars to give people space to breathe. Then it became a compromise: cars during the week, pedestrians on weekends. It was confusing. You’d drive over there on a Friday afternoon and have to guess if the gates were swinging shut yet.
Prop K ends the guessing game.
By passing this measure, voters decided to hand over those lanes to the Recreation and Park Department. It’s no longer a coastal thoroughfare for your morning commute to the Sunset or Richmond districts. It’s going to be a park. This isn't just a "no cars allowed" sign; it's a legal reclassification of the land.
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The timeline is a bit fuzzy, though. You aren't going to see a playground and benches next Tuesday. The city still has to go through the California Coastal Commission. That's a huge hurdle. They also have to figure out the environmental impact reports and, honestly, the money. It’s one thing to close a gate. It’s a whole other thing to maintain two miles of sand-swept pavement as an actual public space.
The Commuter Problem
Let's talk about the 17,000 cars. That’s roughly how many vehicles used that stretch daily before the weekend closures started.
Where do they go? Mostly Sunset Boulevard and 19th Avenue. If you’ve ever tried to navigate 19th Avenue during rush hour, you know it’s already a nightmare. Critics of Prop K, like the "Open the Great Highway" advocates, argued that this move would just shove traffic into residential neighborhoods. They aren't entirely wrong. When the highway closes, the side streets in the Outer Sunset often see a spike in "cut-through" traffic. People get frustrated. They speed.
But the supporters—a coalition including Mayor London Breed and several members of the Board of Supervisors—bet on a different reality. They pointed to data suggesting that traffic eventually "evaporates" or stabilizes as people change their habits. Maybe you take the bus. Maybe you leave ten minutes earlier. Or maybe you just suffer through the lights on Sunset Blvd.
The Climate Reality Nobody Wants to Face
Here is the thing about the Great Highway that often gets lost in the shouting matches: the ocean is winning.
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Prop K wasn't dreamed up in a vacuum. South of Sloat Boulevard, the Great Highway is already falling into the Pacific. Constant erosion has made that section a lost cause. The city is already spending millions on the "Ocean Beach Climate Adaptation Project" to redirect traffic and protect the wastewater treatment plant there.
Coastal experts, including those from organizations like SPUR and the Surfrider Foundation, have been yelling about this for years. The dunes are migrating. Sand covers the road constantly. The city spends a fortune just blowing sand off the asphalt so cars don't slide around. By turning the upper section into a park through Prop K, San Francisco is basically admitting that fighting the tide is a losing battle.
It’s easier to maintain a trail than a high-speed road when the sea level is rising.
Why the Vote Was So Polarized
If you look at the map of how people voted on Prop K, it’s a tale of two cities. The Eastside loved it. The Westside? Not so much.
Residents in the Richmond and Sunset districts felt like their primary north-south artery was being cut off by people who live in the Mission or Hayes Valley and never have to drive out there anyway. It felt like a localized tax on their time. Meanwhile, park advocates saw a once-in-a-generation chance to create a "coastal promenade" that could rival any beachfront park in the world.
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Think about it. Two miles of unobstructed ocean views. No engines. No exhaust. Just the sound of the waves and the wind. For some, that’s worth an extra five minutes in traffic. For a parent living on 41st Avenue who just wants to get their kid to soccer practice without hitting twenty stop signs, it feels like a slap in the face.
The Financial and Legal Next Steps
Passing Prop K was the easy part. Now comes the bureaucracy.
- The Coastal Commission: They have the final say on anything that happens along the California coast. They care deeply about public access. If they decide that closing the road makes it too hard for people from outside the neighborhood to reach the beach, they could throw a wrench in the whole plan.
- Infrastructure Upgrades: Sunset Boulevard needs help. To handle the diverted traffic, the city has to synchronize lights and maybe change lane configurations. If they don't do this quickly, the political backlash will be fierce.
- Funding the "Park": Right now, it’s just a road with no cars. To make it a park, you need bathrooms, lighting, trash cans, and maybe some landscaping. San Francisco’s budget isn't exactly overflowing right now. We might be looking at a "pavement park" for a long, long time.
San Francisco's history is full of these "road vs. park" battles. Remember the Embarcadero Freeway? People fought tooth and nail to keep that eyesore because they thought traffic would die without it. Then the 1989 earthquake hit, the freeway came down, and now nobody can imagine the city without the Embarcadero waterfront. Prop K is trying to pull off that same magic trick on the Westside.
Practical Realities for Residents
If you live in the Sunset or Richmond, your commute is changing. Period. Even if the Coastal Commission delays things, the political will is now firmly on the side of the park.
Don't expect the change to be overnight, but start looking at your routes now. 19th Avenue is going to remain the heavy lifter, and Sunset Boulevard is going to become the new "fast" way. The city has promised to monitor traffic patterns on 41st Avenue and Chain of Lakes Drive, so if you see issues, you need to report them to 311. That's the only way the SFMTA will prioritize traffic calming in the residential blocks.
Actionable Insights for the Prop K Era
- Check the SFMTA Great Highway Page: They post the current status of the gates. Until the full permanent closure is implemented, the "weekend and holiday" schedule usually still applies.
- Engage with the Design Process: The Recreation and Park Department will eventually hold public meetings about what the park should actually look like. If you want benches, bike lanes, or better lighting, that’s where you show up.
- Adjust Commute Times: If you rely on the Westside for north-south travel, try to avoid the 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM peaks on Sunset Blvd. The congestion is real, and the light timing isn't perfect yet.
- Support Local Westside Businesses: Some shop owners on Judah and Taraval were worried that Prop K would hurt foot traffic. The best way to keep the neighborhood vibrant during this transition is to actually spend money there.
Prop K is a bold, messy, and very San Franciscan experiment. It’s a bet that we value open space more than we value a slightly faster drive. Whether that bet pays off depends entirely on how well the city manages the transition over the next two years. For now, the gates are staying closed more often than they're open, and the Pacific Ocean keeps inching closer.