Healthy Saturdays Are Back!

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