JOEL ON PARKS and ENVIRONMENT

Overview
We live in an urban setting and parks are essential for our wellbeing. San Francisco is a 49-square-mile peninsula with more than 800,000 residents. We can’t take open space for granted. That’s why our parks must prioritize recreational activities and access for everyone.

There are many mini-parks and small patches of underutilized land sprinkled throughout our neighborhoods that have been neglected. Improving and maintaining these areas is a cost-effective way to create the additional space residents need. Every spot that can fit a picnic, a yoga pose, or a nap under a tree helps.

We must protect our open spaces, mitigate the effects of climate change, and reduce carbon emissions to zero. Local actions matter when it comes to global concerns about the health of our planet.

Mini-parks
There are many mini-parks and small patches of open land sprinkled throughout our neighborhoods that require attention. City Hall has neglected these spaces for years and let them become overrun with weeds and trash. Simple maintenance of mini-parks is a cost-effective way of providing the additional space residents need. One example is Triangle Park, which Joel helped fix by raising awareness through his journalism. 

Great Highway
Joel supports allowing cars on the Great Highway on weekdays to serve commuters and opening the Great Highway on weekends and holidays to pedestrians and cyclists for recreation.

Many residents are concerned about speeding through their residential streets, which threatens public safety. While this has been a longstanding problem in our district, many feel the problem has gotten worse.

How we move traffic safely using street design and infrastructure is important. We need to provide routes for people to safely get to work and school using their preferred transportation modes.

We must act now to plan for the future of the Great Highway. By 2024, a consortium of local, state, and federal agencies will implement a plan to permanently close the Great Highway Extension (South of Sloat) due to erosion. That stretch of road is literally falling into the ocean, so all southbound traffic will be forced to turn left at Sloat. This will create new traffic pain points that we need to work to understand and mitigate now, and not wait until it happens. This is an opportunity to create a permanent oceanside park from Lincoln to Sloat as we solve the traffic concerns with community input.

Joel’s priority is to ensure our neighborhood streets are safer and more convenient for local residents while Ocean Beach remains open and accessible to all.

SFGATE: The closed Great Highway made the New York Times list of “52 Places for a Changed World”

"The Great Highway has become a unique destination — in a city full of them — to take in San Francisco’s wild Pacific Ocean coastline by foot, bike, skates or scooter, sample food trucks and explore local cafes, restaurants, record stores, bookstores and more,"

— The New York Times

PARKS and ENVIRONMENT ESSAYS