Two community Events Gathering Feedback for 9th Ave Entrance to Golden Gate Park
ISPN and friends hosted two events this spring to gather feedback for improvements to Golden Gate Park entrance at 9th Ave and Lincoln. The first event was a walking tour to point out signage, traffic challenges and historic elements. The group has been collaborating with many agencies including SF Recreation and Parks, SFMTA, Department of Public Works, as well as California Academy of Sciences and the Botanical Garden.
District 5 Supervisor and President of the Board, London Breed and her aide Iris Wong attended the walking tour. President Breed committed to allocating money for a traffic study.
A second event with a charette style format, asked groups to consider all the elements at the entrance including safety, signage, landscaping and better traffic flow for pedestrians, bicycle and cars. Car traffic can be a challenge in and out of the park especially on special event days. Large traffic islands in the middle of the crosswalk can interfere with pedestrian traffic and there is often not enough time on the light cycle for large crowds to walk across Lincoln. Each group brainstormed ideas and then presented back to the larger group. Several people mentioned that when the Concourse parking garage is full, an automatic electronic sign at the entrance to the park should be on to allow car drivers another option like rerouting to the UCSF garage which offers a shuttle to GGP on the weekends. Much of the traffic appears to increase when the parking garage is full. One slight variable that has not fully been studied is how the moving on the outbound N-Judah stop from Irving to 9th Ave will affect traffic. The new stop will be in front of Arizmendi Bakery. 
It is the group’s goal to complete designs, gain community approval, find funding and complete the renovation in time for the 150th birthday of Golden Gate Park in 2020.