Letters: Restore access to the old Great Highway park's biggest group of users

San Francisco Chronicle​

23-05-2025

Sunset Dunes is new, but there has been a park at Ocean Beach for decades. It was done the right way with planning and consultation with nearby neighbors. It had access to all, bike paths, a shared path and efficient car traffic.
Now, with the Great Highway closed, most of the park's previous users are denied access — drivers enjoying the efficiency and views, day and night, in any kind of weather.
There were always surfers, walkers, fishermen and crabbers. On good weather days, there were crowds of people. I never heard anyone say, 'I want to party on the blacktop, forget the beach.'
We taxpayers paid for that beautiful, pre-COVID park. We deserve to keep our access.
Give the Sunset, Richmond and Golden Gate Park back to those who've lived here for years. We don't deserve to have our neighborhoods taken away by ambitious politicians.
The fairest option is to open the highway to cars except during the day on weekends and holidays, when almost all recreational use occurs.
Eric Shackelford, San Francisco
No go on congestion fee
The two congestion zones proposed previously stretch from Mission Creek to Fisherman's Wharf and from Van Ness Avenue to the Bay. Much of this area is not congested at all.
The real congestion is caused mainly by vehicles heading for the Bay Bridge, a situation that has been exacerbated by changes to the approaches made by the city's street engineers, who only think in terms of restricting traffic and not facilitating it.
Public transit is just not an option for many trips, especially considering the sad shape of our transit systems.
I love San Francisco, but if this proposal is adopted, I will think twice about visiting the city.
Les Girouard, Berkeley
Add affordable housing
Regarding 'Controversial S.F. housing project in the Mission gets green light despite resistance' (San Francisco, SFChronicle.com, May 16): Our city government has once again betrayed the community by siding with a large developer.
More than 60 residents and 40 businesses were displaced by the fire that destroyed a building at 22nd and Mission streets — the Mission Market was a vibrant hub that served the needs of the community.
The landlord was permitted to leave the damaged building exposed to the elements. Two subsequent fires conveniently rendered it irreparable, enabling landlord Hawk Lou to tear it down.
Now, to add insult to injury, the city is allowing him to sell it to a developer who will flood the Mission with more units that are unaffordable to the people who live and work there.
If the city leaders understood that residents and workers represent the lifeblood of this unique barrio, it would constrain this negligent landlord to work out a deal that facilitates 100% low-income housing to be constructed there.
Anthony Holdsworth, San Francisco
Bad bogus bill
President Donald Trump's nightmarish 'Big Beautiful Bill' feels like a multipronged assault on the American people.
If enacted, the tax and domestic spending bill will hobble the government with oceans of red ink and trillions in additional debt at higher rates, thanks to the recent Moody's downgrade.
When combined with Trump's disastrous tariffs and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency's slapdash evisceration of federal spending, we'll likely see slower growth, higher prices, more limited supplies and diminished public services.
Trump and Musk have reduced the country to an out-of-control pariah state — unwelcoming, untrustworthy and uncharitable. But it'll be a bonanza for the likes of Trump, Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and their oligarch buddies.