BS Summary: This article contains 22 faulty reasoning types, including Overconfidence Bias, Anecdotal, and Anchoring Bias, with Appeal to Authority as the most egregious example at 19.9% saturation with 135 hits. Analysis detected 692 faulty-reasoning hits from 679 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 27.4% and a BS Rank of 11% (19,635 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 89.70% of the article peer group.
Great Highway Reopening Price Tag More Than $10 Million, Records Show
City records show estimated costs of signal replacement and repaving if a proposed ballot measure passes in November.
Visitors seen during the grand opening of the Sunset Dunes Park along the former Upper Great Highway, in San Francisco, on April 12, 2025.
City records show estimated costs of signal replacement and repaving if a proposed ballot measure passes in November.
(Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
If proponents of reopening the Sunset Dunes Park to cars get their way, it'll come with a cost - over $10 million dollars.
A peek at the bill shows that the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and the Recreation and Parks Department estimate that transitioning a chunk of the Great Highway back to car traffic on weekdays would total at least $10.75 million, according to records reviewed by KQED.
The yearslong battle between the pro-park and pro-road sides continued into this year when a petition circulated to bring the issue back to voters this November, two years after voters turned the segment into a park.
The proposal would open the road up to traffic on weekdays, but hasn't officially qualified for the ballot yet.
Lucas Lux, president of Friends of Sunset Dunes, said it's the "opposite of what we should be doing."
"Let me put it this way: If you want to spend $14 million of taxpayer money to rip out a park, you have to ask yourself why.
What do you get out of it?"
Lux said, referring to additional costs from city departments to another publication.
SFMTA would see the highest cost in the proposal.
Around $10 million would include costs for restoring signals from Judah Street and Sloat Boulevard and replacing signals at Lincoln and the Great Highway, according to emails that KQED reviewed between Supervisor Myrna Melgar and a Recreation and Parks Department official.
A bicyclist rides through Sunset Dunes, a park on the former Great Highway roadway, in San Francisco's Sunset neighborhood on April 9, 2026.
(Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Recreation and Parks would foot a cost of $750,000 to remove park elements and repave streets, according to spokesperson Tamara Barak Aparton.
Mission Local, which originally reported on the cost, said it could be even greater.
SFMTA would carry additional costs that would bring the price tag to $13.75 million, according to that publication.
Michael Roccaforte, a spokesperson for SFMTA, did not confirm or deny any figures, but referred KQED to the Controller's office, which will prepare a financial analysis for the ballot, if the measure qualifies.
"That'll be the most detailed and accurate look at the situation," Roccaforte wrote.
Proponents of the proposed measure announced this month that it had collected enough signatures to qualify for the Nov. 3 election, but election officials have to verify the signatures before it's officially placed on the ballot.
Some in favor of the road's reopening have contended that it would help residents get to and from places they go and that traffic would be eased.
Lux said that road supporters' main concern of traffic isn't supported by data.
"There is no traffic issue," Lux said.
Last year, SFMTA presented a mixed bag of traffic trends in a report following the stretch's closure.
"Some roadways are busier and more congested," the agency said in July 2025.
Lower Great Highway and Chain of Lakes Drive saw hundreds of more daily drivers, according to data.
But the traffic on the Upper Great Highway between Lincoln and Fulton decreased by 30%.
Other analyses - one in 2025, another this year - also showed a little bit of each.
During rush hour, the Chronicle found that there had been more congestion, while The Frisc reported that a handful of streets saw less congestion.
Friends of Sunset Dunes has legally challenged the ballot petition, saying it has "materially mislead" voters about statements related to traffic of emergency vehicles and having safer transit.
Also named in the lawsuit is John Arntz, the director of elections for San Francisco.
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