The Great Highway Caper
by Sebraleaves
San Francisco has thousands of people living on the street in need of food and medical care. We have a rising crime rate and our schools and colleges are underfunded. Why are city authorities wasting precious time creating new problems to mitigate by closing streets? Don’t our supervisors have more important things to spend their time and money on than creating programs to fix? This feels like a diversion to hide the fact that they don’t know what to do about car break-ins and home invasions. The key to staying in office is not to always fight for change. The cheapest, safest and easiest thing to do is nothing.
How many hours have our city representatives and their staff dedicated to meeting with constituents and special interest groups trying negotiate changes on a street that was working perfectly well before they declared it was a problem? Who declared war on the Great Highway? Who paid to rebrand and market the Great Walkway ? Who is paying for the PR campaigns, notices, public meetings, slick Powerpoint presentations, graphics, web presence, marketing materials and surveys put out by multiple agencies? Who is paying for the counting machines and staff watching and reporting? Who produced the videos of happy people walking on the street next to the empty sidewalks and walkways pushing the wonderful “new” park at the beach? I hope it is not being financed by the taxpayers who don’t want it.
How much money is SFMTA pouring into closing and shrinking streets and while claiming they are broke and can’t afford to run a full functioning Muni system? Why is everyone at the SFMTA not focusing on finishing the projects they are years behind schedule on instead of closing streets and campaigning against cars? Why are they not focused on bringing back Muni service if they want people to take the bus? The public cannot rely on the limited service SFMTA is offering. Putting up barriers and digging up streets is not a good use of limited funds.
Where is the money coming from to close the Great Highway? Were any of the non-profits, public/private entities, or contractors under investigation for financial corruption involved in any of the funding of any of the street closure projects? Were any lobbyist or attorneys working for the public and the private entities involved? Are taxpayer funds being used to fight citizens opposing the street closures. As the citizens try to emerge from the emergency conditions of the shutdowns the traffic needs to flow again in order for the economy to return to normal. There is nothing normal about the getting through the constantly changing maze on the increasingly unsafe streets.
Who is calling the shots when it comes to use of police force? Authorities have no trouble arresting protestors stopping traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge, but can’t seem to handle cyclists’ antics on the Great Highway. When you change the rules on people and confuse them with creative new streets and multiple traffic signals they forget the protocols they used to follow. If the bikes can race through red lights without consequences so can motor vehicles. Everyone must play by the rules, not just some. No one respects the law when it is not applied evenly. What we have now is close to anarchy on the streets and the only thing that will calm the situation and bring a sense of security to the citizens is a true return to normal once the emergency declaration is lifted.
Reopening the Great Highway: https://www.openthegreathighway.com Petition to reopen the Great Highway: https://www.change.org/p/residents-of-san-francisco-open-the-great-highway
