District 4 Supervisor Alan Wong’s promise to reopen the Great Highway to cars via a ballot measure turned out to be unsafe at any speed. The blame for this political lemon, according to Wong’s fellow supervisors, falls on Wong.
At the 5 p.m. deadline to submit the measure, Wong was short by one signature; Department of Elections staff moments ago confirmed that there would be no ballot measure.
San Francisco has one of the lowest ballot thresholds in California, requiring only four legislators to sign a measure onto the ballot. But only Wong himself, Supervisor Connie Chan and Supervisor Chyanne Chen signed the dotted line.
Supervisor Shamann Walton — who did not favor Prop. K of 2024, which transformed the Great Highway into a park — today opted against joining Wong’s effort.
“When it comes to ballot measures, my priorities are to advocate for things that serve District 10 residents and the city as a whole,” said Walton via text. “There are several important issues and critical priorities on the June ballot, and I do not want us to be distracted by a measure that was not well thought-out, introduced at the last minute and constantly changing.”
The outcome was not surprising: Wong’s rollout of the proposal — he failed to lobby fellow supervisors until the 11th hour, and purportedly did not do so in person — left both supporters and opponents of the ballot measure befuddled. “I wish we had been approached and asked to have conversations about this much earlier,” said one City Hall insider close to the process.
“You’d think he’d line up his votes before talking to the press. It’s a self-inflicted mistake,” said political consultant David Ho. “If this doesn’t get on, it’s quite embarrassing, but not a total loss. He could still say, ‘I represented my constituents’ sentiment.’”
On Monday afternoon, Wong defended his approach.
At the strike of 5 p.m. on Jan. 13, personnel at the Department of Elections declared that there would be no ballot measure to reopen the Great Highway. Photo by Junyao Yang
“I’ve been very transparent … It’s very simple legislation. People can easily take a position on it,” he said. “I’ve shared the legislation multiple times with other offices and the media. There should be no confusion where people should stand.”
The ballot measure would have reintroduced cars onto the Great Highway on weekdays, while keeping it a pedestrian- and bicycle-only park during the weekends.
But Wong significantly altered even that basic proposal just a day before the deadline. He added amendments on Monday that he said were proposed by Chan. One would have allowed cars back onto the Great Highway not only on weekdays, but also possibly on weekends under “exceptional circumstances.”
Those circumstances were not defined, and Wong did not specify how diverting hundreds of adults and children off a bike- and walkway would work in practice.
“If there are exceptional circumstances, such as if there’s unprecedented congestion, closure of the Chain of Lakes, or some giant concert happening, that could cause issues for the neighborhood,” Wong said on Tuesday afternoon.
Chan’s district, the Richmond, has been impacted in past years by increased traffic during concerts like Outside Lands in Golden Gate Park.
Alan Wong presents a map of traffic injuries to the press on Jan. 8, 2026, a few hours after he first sent the proposal to other supervisors. Photo by Junyao Yang.
Supervisors — even Chan, who decided to sign on — said they had received little prior communication from Wong to seek their support.
Chan only offered her support on Sunday. Chen did so 20 minutes before the deadline. And all the supervisors, sympathetic or not, first received a draft proposal last Thursday, six days before the deadline.
Chen’s office only received the final draft — containing the language that would appear on the ballot — at 4:15 p.m. on Monday, about an hour after the press had received its copy.
Wong, for his part, said supporting the measure should not have been controversial. “The bottom line is: It’s a six-page document. It’s pretty straightforward,” he said. Wong said it should not make “that big of a difference how soon people see” the final draft.
City Hall insiders were, across the board, perplexed by that assertion: Reopening the Great Highway and shutting down Sunset Dunes is a political minefield. Lobbying fellow supervisors for their support on such a contentious issue requires tact — and time. It might also require facetime, meaning in-person discussions. Supervisors say that didn’t happen.
The last-minute amendments were also problematic. If Chain of Lakes Drive were congested on a Saturday, for example, the general manager of the Recreation and Parks Department — which has authority over the Great Highway, not SFMTA — would have been able to make the call to open the park to cars, Wong said on Monday.
Transit professionals viewed Wong’s proposal with dismay.
“That would be such a mess. What an awful situation to create,” said Sarah Jones, the former planning director of the SFMTA and a major player in planning and enacting car-free JFK Drive. “Who’s gonna tell the park director to do that?”
Advocates for reopening the Great Highway may opt to gather signatures from citywide voters for a potential November ballot measure. “We have an opportunity to listen to people on East side and make our case to them,” said Lisa Arjes, a major benefactor of the effort to recall Supervisor Joel Engardio after his championing of removing cars from the Great Highway.
Walton said he’d still favor a ballot measure regarding the Great Highway in November.
“I continue to support a compromise from the community around the Great Highway,” wrote Walton, whose chief of staff, Natalie Gee, is running against Wong. “I look forward to supporting the community-led process to get a measure on the ballot in November that will be well thought-out, not rushed and not disjointed.”
Such a measure would have been politically advantageous for Wong in June, however: Wong is up for election that month after being appointed to the vacant District 4 seat by Mayor Daniel Lurie in November. His face could have graced paid campaign mailers for the ballot measure, and those who turned out to vote for the measure might also have voted for him.
Nearly two-thirds of District 4 voters inveighed against taking cars off the Great Highway in 2024, even as nearly 55 percent of voters, citywide, favored doing so.
“He’s trying to appease his constituents,” Jones said. “Maybe it’s about putting something forward… but knowing that it’s not going to work. He might know full well — because of the way he did it — it’s gonna crash and burn.”
