Plainiffs fighting to stop the illegal unfunded Parking Garage are going into court for a temporary restraining order to stop the Golden Gate Park Concourse Authority and Warren Hellman's Music Concourse Community Partnership .

 

When the TRO is issued, a press release will be sent out and you are kindly asked to forward the news to your email lists and friends. We need to generate more letters to the press, especially to raise questions about the inadequate funding for the garage, and the failure of the Concourse Authority to produce the promised auto free Pedestrian Oasis.

 

The suits filed by Trees Not Cars and the Alliance for Golden Gate Park and Save GG Park! were consolidated in Superior Court. (Stay tuned for a comprehensive news update on Wednesday. ) 

 

 

 

 

Write your neighborhood paper and join us tomorrow to let the City know you want the Concourse and Pedestrian Tunnels protected while litigation moves forward in the Courts.

 

                                                      ********         

 

Park patrons reopened the JFK Tunnel by the Children's Playground near 10th and Fulton on Saturday.  The tunnel had been illegally locked by the City for over two weeks.

 

Plus, the fenced off pedestrian right of way leading from the Rhododendron Dell into the Concourse via the Southeast Tunnel, was also reopended Saturday by park visitors.  Clearly, City residents won't sit idly while the tunnels and concourse are threatened. .

 

 

Next meeting: In Golden Gate Park: High Noon ON SUNDAY, March 14, directly across JFK from the Skater's area at 6th Avenue. We will have outreach materials, window posters and info on the future of the Music Concourse and direct actions.

 

Stop the Garage!  

 

Save Golden Gate Park!

415-621-3090

 

*Alliance members: please forward news bits to SGGP! by 9 PM Tusday night. Stay tuned for a possible press advisory and press event later in the week.

 

                                                     *******

 

Janice Rothstein provided the following information on the Walk SF website:

http://www.walksf.org/        Go to: "Trouble in Golden Gate Park"

 

 

 

Protect the Pedestrian Oasis in Golden Gate Park's Music Concourse

Walk SF members have been very vocal in their support for the construction of a TRUE pedestrian oasis in the Music Concourse, as promised by Proposition J in 1998. The San Francisco Examiner recently published an editorial that indicated that pedestrian advocacy groups were NOT concerned about the current plans of the Concourse Authority. As noted by our Board member, Rich Coffin's, letter below, this is not true. We are very concerned. We urge all City residents to speak up loudly - in letters to the editor, to Supervisor Aaron Peskin, to your own Supervisor, and to:

Michael Ellzey
GOLDEN GATE PARK CONCOURSE AUTHORITY
McLaren Lodge, Golden Gate Park
501 Stanyan Street
San Francisco, CA 94117

Walk San Francisco's official position is that the Music Concourse Area should not be a through-traffic area. It should be safe and accessible for pedestrians and cyclists. The only motorized vehicles that should be allowed are transit, disabled and emergency vehicles. If you can make only one point, make this one: a pedestrian oasis means that walkers do not have to compete for space with motor vehicles!

Here is Rich's full letter from this Friday's Exaggerator:

http://www.sfexaminer.com/article/index.cfm/i/030504op_letters

Music garage

YOU MADE many statements in your editorial (Examiner View, Feb. 20) that misrepresent scope of the opposition to the current garage plan for Golden Gate Park.

Most of the environmental, neighborhood and transportation groups mentioned have had bitter and prolonged discussions regarding the shortcomings of the garage plans. Walk San Francisco, The City's leading pedestrian-advocacy group, has expressed its concerns with the current garage plan in writing to the supervisors and opposed approval of the EIR based on its failure to properly address the traffic, noise, transit and pedestrian-safety impacts from the added cars driving into the park and the adjacent neighborhoods.

In lieu of our organization officially backing a lawsuit, we are working with the Concourse Authority to improve the concourse design to ensure that it's as wonderful a new public space as was promised by 1998's Proposition J. You state that the garage is the will of the voters; however, Proposition J's presentation of a new "Pedestrian Oasis" and language that implied that all entrances would be outside the park was what San Franciscans voted for; the current design does not meet either of these vital promises.

Richard Coffin
Board of Directors,
Walk San Francisco

 

 

 

lia wilbourn <liatown@hotmail.com> wrote: