=v= Two anti-MLK-widening letters in the _Chron_ today, in response to Ken Garcia's stupid column. <_Jym_> http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/11/24/EDG029VV0H1.DTL LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Wednesday, 24-Nov-2004 | San Francisco Chronicle | Page B-8 Protests seek to save park for true park uses Editor -- As a neighbor to Golden Gate Park and one of more than 600 San Franciscans who wrote to protest the de Young's latest proposal to widen Martin Luther King Boulevard in order to accommodate more traffic, I take issue with Ken Garcia's column ("In S.F., change is never a walk in the park," Nov. 22). Many groups are fighting this development beyond the Trees Not Cars organization. The developers are disregarding the needs of the public in the name of their enterprise. This is a park, one of our last public spaces -- a place we very much need to defend. It seems that a compromise can be found, taking into consideration the needs of park-goers and neighbors along with the desires of the de Young. My greatest hope is that the de Young and its benefactors can see that what is being requested is not at all unreasonable -- simply asking that the needs of our public not be sacrificed, and that the park remain what it was designed for: a space for quiet and safe recreation, which can more than properly coexist with the museum. MATTHEW IRIBARNE San Francisco Editor -- In his attacks on citizen opposition to widening roads in Golden Gate Park, Ken Garcia omits that in 1998 voters approved Proposition J to build an underground garage and to make the park more bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly by reducing the impact of automobiles in the park. Voters thought they were voting for public policies defending the "graceful, forested jewel" of Golden Gate Park, not big roads in the park. But the Concourse Authority has brazenly proposed to widen MLK Drive to make it easier for motorists to access the garage. This road-building proposal is not surprising. Since groundbreaking, both the de Young Museum and Concourse Authority made John F. Kennedy Drive a hazard to bicyclists. They seem uninterested in removing surface parking in the park, and they are ignoring the voter mandate for a true pedestrian oasis in the Concourse. Bike lanes? These guys could not care less. JASON HENDERSON San Francisco [Deletia]