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Parking in the Parkby Eric MillerIn a few short years the City-Beautiful inspired museums in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park will all be gone. As late as 2001, if you stood in the Park's Grand Concourse and looked around you, the surroundings would seem classically inspired. By 2008 a new home for the De Young Museum, Steinhart Aquarium, and California Academy of Sciences are expected to be complete, and from the same vantage point, no trace of the classical monuments will be visible, having been replaced with buildings architects have designed to fit into the natural landscape of the park. But fitting into the natural landscape of the park is something opponents say can not be done easily. The battle over crowd attractions in a park, which some say should be a recluse from the bustle, stretch back to the City Beautiful movement itself. The path to the new museums was a long one. Debates over whether to keep the De Young in the park--or move it to the Embarcadero or Civic Center--lingered. The Asian Art Museum was, in the end, moved out of the park, recently opening in its new central location. The De Young, however will stay, and be reborn in an expanded form, ready to attract larger crowds. While many look to parks as a refuge, museums are no strangers to the urban wilderness. New York's Central Park, after all, houses both the Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And so, many say, Golden Gate Park can continue its role as a regenerator for the mind as well as the body.
With the De Young under construction, it is certain the park will remain a place for museums. The question over to what extent it will increase its role as a place for cars remains unanswered. Today one detail in the master plan remains a working sketch--a sketch which outlines the shape of a proposed underground parking garage. Proposals And PropositionsFollowing extensive debates on rebuilding the De Young Museum or keeping it in the park and relocating the Asian Art Museum Downtown, San Francisco voters passed Proposition J to address parking in the park in 1998.J, also known as the Golden Gate Park Revitalization Act of 1998, mandates that an 800--1,000 space underground parking facility be included in the new plans. For each space created below ground, a space above ground must be removed. This is a problem because there aren't 800 spaces to be removed with out being punitive to general park users on the west end. The proposition aimed to enhance access by motorists into the park while trying to reconcile inevitable conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles in the park. After the rebuild, visitors to the De Young and California Academy of Sciences are expected to grow from 1,100,000 to 2,000,000 annually. Accommodating that many people in the city center would present enough challenges, but locating the museums, which aim to secure blockbuster attractions, in the park presents a challenge monumental enough to stump City Beautiful planners. How can you keep the integrity of the park as a place of recluse, keep traffic from becoming a nuisance, and prevent traffic-pedestrian fatalities? A Pedestrian OasisWith a layout much like it is today, the Music Concourse was constructed as the Grand Court for the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition.The Spreckels Temple of Music (rebuilt in a more permanent material) and the M.H. de Young Museum (now demolished), which remained from the 1894 fair, were the original structures. The California Academy of Sciences was built in 1916, and the Rideout Fountain in 1924. The buildings surround a sunken amphitheater of sorts which is lined with London plane trees. Surrounding the concourse are pedestrian tunnels that access roadways, making the music concourse an artistic and educational retreat. Originally the plan for a parking garage would have temporarily removed the trees, replacing them after a garage was constructed below the concourse. Garages with sizable vegetation above them are expensive, however. The disruption, opposition from advocates adamant about saving the trees, and expense are factors that likely came into play when project planners instead opted for a less disruptive approach. The current plan would construct two, two-level parking structures--one located beneath Tea Garden Drive (between the new M. H. de Young Museum and the Music Concourse), and the second beneath Academy Drive (between the California Academy of Sciences and the Music Concourse). An underground tunnel would connect the two structures. While the second plan saves the process of removing the trees, opponents say any garage is "grossly disruptive" and continue to call for preventing its construction. "I am not entirely opposed to private automobiles in the park," says longtime park advocate Chris Duderstadt, jesting that they'll be around for another twenty years. Duderstadt says the private auto is part and parcel of the California lifestyle, a part the planning should allow for. "Nothing slows traffic like an SUV driver trying to parallel park," he says. "I feel that areas of the park should be free of autos, but also that parking is needed for people to visit the Park." Duderstadt, who lives near the park, expresses his concerns that the new complex will be more like "Marine World" than serene museums. More, he says the garage will destroy important park landmarks, including several pedestrian tunnels, and will invite additional auto traffic into the park. The Motorcar and Some Devilish DetailsOther options have been discussed. One would have extended the "N-Judah" light-rail line into the park, utilizing some of the city's historic streetcars. That would come at a cost not so different from the garage structure.Muni has changed the names on several motor bus routes so they are labeled Golden Gate Park. But Duderstadt says that's not enough--and there's a simpler solution. The plan calls for removing almost as many above ground spaces as it creates underground, so why not encourage park users to park at the west end, freeing up existing surface spaces for museumgoers? New parking meters that are coming for the 2000 spaces in the Eastern end of the park will limit the parking time there and help accomplish this. General park patrons will be encouraged to park in the west, where the time is unlimited, and museum goers will be able to park in the east. Without rescinding Proposition J, however, the parking garage construction is all but certain. The demon, however, may be in the details. One detail is this: Prop J called for all garage entrances to be from outside the park. Duderstadt said the current plan has an entrance from inside the concourse. More, a scaled down garage can't support as much earth above it, limiting its ability to blend in with the natural environment. The Alliance for Golden Gate Park and the Sierra Club believe that to have a Pedestrian Oasis, as was described in Proposition J, all private auto traffic must be removed from the Concourse. One proposal would just block the area off, but Duderstadt says this would result in much of the cross-park traffic actually driving further in the Park. The proposal put forth by the Alliance and the Sierra Club involves a new right-of-way east of the Academy of Science and realignment of a roadway at JFK Drive and 8th Avenue. The Institutions oppose removal of private traffic in order to provide front door drop-off from private autos. The city has at least two other garage structures that are built under parks. The first is a garage under Union Square. The second is at United Nations Plaza. Both of those, while successful at camouflaging themselves, are in urban areas on a street grid. The garage proposed for the concourse is removed by several blocks, making an inconspicuous entrance or exit difficult without major disruption during construction. The Future To BeThere is little time to alter the course of history for the concourse. However, groups including San Francisco Tomorrow, the Alliance for Golden Gate Park, the Sierra Club, and Transportation for a Livable City are continuing opposition and pursuit of design changes.With a draft Environmental Impact Report completed, the next step involves responding to the sixty-some comments submitted about the report. The report, as well as the comments and responses, will then go before the San Francisco Planning Commission, then on to the Board of Supervisors around July. The San Francisco Fine Arts Museums, which includes the de Young, insists the garage must be ready for opening day in Spring of 2005. "If they don't have a shovel in the ground by August of this year, they're in trouble," Duderstadt said. The California Academy of Sciences and Steinhart Aquarium aren't expected to be complete until 2008.
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Questions remain over how easily the museums and the park can coexist. San Francisco, while transit-friendly, isn't New York. More people will bring more cars into the park. The new museums will require additional parking on the east end of the park.