Opinion: Share the Great Highway. Keep San Francisco inclusive. Yes on G.

Recently, San Francisco’s Proposition G made the Wall Street Journal cover its proposal to share the Great Highway through Sunset Dunes Park to cars on weekdays.

The essay certainly did not portray San Francisco as an inclusive city. The No on G proponents, who somehow had the magic power to quickly close a major road carrying 20,000 car trips a day before the Pandemic, have prioritized recreation over working-class people’s struggle to make a living, the concerns of longtime neighbors watching their residential streets turn into traffic arteries, and a 34% increase in neighborhood pedestrian safety risks.

Why has one billionaire alone donated half of the No on G campaign’s funds, while thousands of small donors make up Yes on G’s tiny war chest?

Why are the well-to-do so eager to push families and communities out of the city when these very people helped build the city they love? Why are some so quick to oppose others when we are simply trying to go about our daily lives and contribute to the city?

Why is a compromise like Prop G unacceptable? Why do some want to take it all? Are we living under a colonial mindset in 21st-century San Francisco?

Why aren’t blue-collar families allowed to live in peace in our own communities? Why does this feel like a class war against us? Is it an original sin not to have a remote tech job and make millions?

When everyday people report that it takes 10 minutes just to find a way to turn north onto 19th Avenue, and that Westside commutes take twice as long, No on G supporters tell us that the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) data shows it takes only three more minutes.

When the pregnant woman had to deliver her baby in the Golden Gate Park and the paramedics was stuck in the same traffic jam and had to run two blocks and hop over a short wall for the delivery.

The No on G advocates were not thinking about how to solve traffic deadlocks caused by the Great Highway closure that could have cost lives in emergencies, but pointed out that the woman had the baby on a weekend not a weekday, then our city has already lost its soul.

When the restaurant staff who barely make it to work to serve your lunch, the contractors who drive their trucks to repair your luxury condo, and the truck drivers who deliver your packages, can no longer spare the time to drop their kids off at school, take their elders to the clinic, or get themselves to work, you will be on your own. Is San Francisco an exclusionary and heartless city?

Vote yes on G this November 3 to give working people a chance in San Francisco.

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Josephine Zhao is the President of the Chinese American Democratic Club (CADC) in San Francisco, the oldest Democratic Party affiliation for Chinese Americans in the country, established in 1958. CADC has endorsed Proposition G.