False Alarm Has Garage Foes Scrambling to Testify

By Paul Kozakiewicz

Reacting to speculation that the proposed southern entrance to the new Golden Gate Park garage would be closed, except during high-volume periods, about a dozen residents from the Richmond District showed up at the Golden Gate Concourse Authority's meeting March 8 to express their concerns.

Several San Francisco supervisors are looking at the possibility of keeping the Ninth Avenue and Lincoln Way entrance to the garage mostly closed as a way of mitigating potential negative impacts on the Inner Sunset. A judge is going to rule on the validity of the garage entrance plan and decide if it can proceed as planned.

The Inner Sunset Merchants Association and other groups, including the Coalition for San Francisco neighborhoods, oppose the plan because of the increased traffic congestion it would cause in an already densely-traveled neighborhood. The second entrance was originally envisioned as being inside the park, but a court ruling said it had to be located outside of the park, causing the concourse authority to change its plans.

Marilyn Gradeck, a Richmond District resident living near the garage entrance at Fulton Street and 10th Avenue, told members of the concourse authority that any traffic burden caused by the 800-space garage should be "shared" between the Richmond and Sunset districts, as the garage plan was envisioned throughout its planning process.

The garage consists of two "pods," one on each side of the Music Concourse, which are connected by a roadway. City voters approved the plan.

Many of the people who testified at the March 8 meeting were members of the North Park Neighbors Association, including Duncan Kennedy, who worried about large crowds of visitors coming to the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum and California Academy of Sciences when those institutions reopen.

"The Richmond side of the park will bear all the burden when the museum opens," Kennedy said.

According to Ron Miguel, a member of the Golden Gate Concourse Authority and president of the Planning Association for the Richmond, the southern entrance is going to have to be open for the plan to work and talk of closing the entrance, even temporarily, is only a "rumor."

At the March 8 meeting it was also reported that a transportation plan is nearing completion; the free shuttle system is gearing up for summer crowds; time-limited parking areas are being implemented; signage for the park and garage are being developed; a plan to plant up to 97 sycamore trees in the Music Concourse is moving forward; and a plan to remove 800 parking spaces from roadways in the park is proceeding.

According to Michael Ellzey, executive director of the concourse authority, construction on the north pod is 80 percent complete and will open about six to eight weeks before the south pod. He is currently in discussions concerning the hiring of a management firm for the garage and is looking at several traffic-calming measures for the park, including lowering the speed limit to 15 miles-per-hour and making the park a "double fine zone."

Miguel requested that traffic studies include the potential of major events happening simultaneously at the cultural institutions.

The management firm will be responsible for security at the garage, which is expected to be closed from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. There will be cameras and emergency phones located in the two-story underground garage.