Healthy Saturdays Are Back!

Last Saturday, as I was pedaling through Golden Gate Park, alongside a glut of bumper-to-bumper cars, I kept thinking to myself, "Why did I come on Saturday?" It had been so long since I spent a Saturday in GG Park. The juxtaposition was disgusting to me: a gaggle of cars against the lush green of a national park. On the lower portion of JFK Drive, as it bends toward the Dutch Windmill and Ocean Beach, I watched the irate faces of a few impatient drivers, red with anger that a pedestrian dare cross the street in a park. "This is taking forever!" I heard one of them shout.

By Bryan Goebel

4:14 PM PDT on April 3, 2009

Flickr photo: Kate McCarthy, sfbike

Last Saturday, as I was pedaling through Golden Gate Park, alongside a
glut of bumper-to-bumper cars, I kept thinking to myself, “Why did I
come on Saturday?” It had been so long since I spent a Saturday in GG
Park. The juxtaposition was disgusting to me: a gaggle of cars
against the lush green of a national park. On the lower portion of JFK Drive, as it bends toward the Dutch Windmill and Ocean Beach, I watched the irate faces of
a few impatient drivers, red with anger that a pedestrian dare cross
the street in a park. “This is taking forever!” I heard one of them
shout.

But guess what? I had forgotten. Beginning tomorrow, and for the next six months, San Franciscans will get to enjoy a mostly car-free Golden Gate Park on Saturdays. It’s already permanent on Sundays. For the third year in a row, the Department of Park and Rec will open JFK Drive from Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive to Transverse Drive to bicyclists, pedestrians and anyone who wants to enjoy healthy activity in a space free of motor vehicles for 24 Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition plans to celebrate this year’s first Healthy Saturday with “Freedom From Training Wheels.” They’re also holding a potluck from 12 to 2 p.m.

Going to the first Healthy Saturday of 2009? Submit your pictures for our Eyes on the Street feature. Join our Flickr pool here, or add to our feed by
tagging bookmarks in del.icio.us with for:sf.streetsblog, pictures in Flickr with sf.streetsblog, or videos in YouTube with sf.streetsblog.

That’s how we like it! Photo: Bryan Goebel

Bryan Goebel

Bryan Goebel is a reporter at KQED Public Radio in San Francisco. A veteran journalist and writer, he helped launch Streetsblog SF in 2009 and served as editor for three years. He lives car-free in the Castro District.

Bicycling | Golden Gate Park | Healthy Saturdays | Livable Streets | SFBC

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