On April 16th, a white Toyota Corolla was filmed driving down San Francisco’s newest car-free park … while a group of elementary kids were allegedly walking down it.
This is why we can’t have nice things. When Sunset Dunes Park debuted on April 12th, thousands (not hundreds) gathered to celebrate what is now the longest and largest park from a repurposed street corridor in the United States — while also being among the most considerable coastal parks in North America. In lieu of car traffic, a kaleidoscope of public art, common spaces, recreational activities, and an abundance of communal walking and biking opportunities have filled the spaces once occupied by cars.
Sunset Dunes’s positive reception has swayed some of its staunchest former critics, trading their (misplaced) criticism for praise. Nevertheless, private automobiles have occasionally found themselves driving along the car-free corridor.
“Someone drove their white Toyota Corolla through Sunset Dunes this morning,” reads an Instagram post from [at]san_francisco_now published on April 16th, sharing a video of the mentioned four-door sedan driving right down a mostly empty section of Sunset Dunes park.
Stretching over two miles, only two main entrances —one at each end of the park, Sloat Boulevard and Lincoln Way — mark the park. These, too, are the only main entrances where a car could enter, barring the barricades are open; more pedestrian-friendly entrances are dotted along the park’s eastern side, as well.
It’s unclear how the white Japanese-modeled vehicle entered the park, but it appears to have done so with general ease… and, perhaps, unintentionally… One would have to be pretty hard-headed to have ignored the ample “no car entry” signage common at the park’s entrances and in the general surrounding area.
Per [at]san_francisco_now, the preschool class was “on the tarmac at the time” at the time of the rogue driver; no injuries or run-ins with the vehicle were reported.
In the post’s comment section, pro-car enthusiasts — the vast majority of whom sported faceless avatars, some using stock car images as profile pictures — were quick to pounce, citing that the great highway is a “HIGHWAY’ or that roads were meant for cars, not people.
(The irony is palpable for those of us who call somewhere on the anti-car, pro-pedestrian pipeline. Roads were historically meant as pathways for pedestrians; in fact, cyclists were among the first transportation group to push for better road surfaces and infrastructure … and it wasn’t until the personal car ownership became common in the 1920s that roads began adopting more car-focused designs; forward about a half-century, American roads had ultimately become car-centric pathways, thanks to heavy lobbying by automotive companies … which, in tandem, effectively hobbled public transit.)
Anecdotal accounts of other cars having driven down the car-free Upper Great Highway have dotted social media since the incident — but this is the most damning, careless, and well documented case.
