Thursday, August 27, 2009

Outside Lands FAIL: Shutting down Ocean Beach parking lot WITHOUT NOTICE

On my regular commute on the Great Highway to work this morning, I noticed the Ocean Beach parking lot between Fulton and Lincoln was fenced off this morning all lot entry points.

As usual, last night, the Federal Park Police and National Park Rangers were out in force to kick-out all people parked at the beach lot at 11PM, but these temporary barricades were up sometime between 11PM and 8AM blocking all access to parking.

The barricades were not placed by SFPD, in fact, they looked like they were rented from some event company.

The phone call:
I called the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) this morning to find-out why the lot was closed, assuming the lot was owned by the federal government because the federal government police officers are enforcing the late night no-parking policy.

After waiting about 15 minutes for a reply, I was informed the lot was owned by the city, but he explained to me the lot closure was for Outside Lands. The closure is from Thursday to Tuesday.

While nothing against the GGNRA, I explained to him that there was no notice given of a lot closure because that would tick-off all the surfers and the frequent tour buses that pull-over for their break and let the visitors go to the Beach Chalet. GGNRA's policy for their lots (such as Land's End/USS San Francisco Memorial lot) is to give at least a week's notice.

Basically, there's two FAILS:
  1. San Francisco Government (in particular, SFPD, DPT, and the Golden Gate Park management) for failure to place notices of a city owned parking lot closure.
  2. Outside Lands for not mentioning this in their "311" page and letter to neighborhood residents.
What a great start... piss off the surfers!

1 comment:

  1. I saw a couple meter maids in those ticketing golf cart things down there this morning at 8am and was wondering what they were doing (other than chilling, watching the waves).

    ReplyDelete

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