JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park for People

2:57 PM PDT on March 18, 2020

JFK drive in Golden Gate Park. Photo: Aaron Bialick

The advocacy group Walk San Francisco wants to make sure city residents have a safe, calm, peaceful place to exercise and take a break during the COVID-19 emergency. That's why it's launched a petition to ask leaders to make JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park car-free.

From the petition:

Golden Gate Park is our most important public space for getting necessary physical exercise to stay healthy during the City’s shelter-in-place order due to COVID-19. And the order itself defines exercise outdoors as an essential activity.
People are flocking to Golden Gate Park as one of the few places in San Francisco where walking, biking, running, and playing outdoors is possible while maintaining social distancing of at least six feet.
In light of San Francisco’s shelter-in-place order due to COVID-19, I urge you to immediately create car-free space for people on JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park from Kezar Drive to Transverse Drive ...every day of the week for the duration of shelter-in-place. I also urge you to consider additional street closures in Golden Gate Park.

During this crisis, people will need a place they can escape to for some peace. And with the shelter-in-place order, there's no need for so many cars to be speeding through the park on what is essentially a ground-level freeway. Streetsblog urges readers to take a moment and sign the petition.

Roger Rudick @

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