JOEL ON PARKS and ENVIRONMENT
Overview
We live in an urban setting and parks are essential for our wellbeing. San Francisco is a 49-square-mile peninsula with more than 800,000 residents. We can’t take open space for granted. That’s why our parks must prioritize recreational activities and access for everyone.
There are many mini-parks and small patches of underutilized land sprinkled throughout our neighborhoods that have been neglected. Improving and maintaining these areas is a cost-effective way to create the additional space residents need. Every spot that can fit a picnic, a yoga pose, or a nap under a tree helps.
We must protect our open spaces, mitigate the effects of climate change, and reduce carbon emissions to zero. Local actions matter when it comes to global concerns about the health of our planet.
Mini-parks
There are many mini-parks and small patches of open land sprinkled throughout our neighborhoods that require attention. City Hall has neglected these spaces for years and let them become overrun with weeds and trash. Simple maintenance of mini-parks is a cost-effective way of providing the additional space residents need. One example is Triangle Park, which Joel helped fix by raising awareness through his journalism.
Great Highway
Joel supports allowing cars on the Great Highway on weekdays to serve commuters and opening the Great Highway on weekends and holidays to pedestrians and cyclists for recreation.
Many residents are concerned about speeding through their residential streets, which threatens public safety. While this has been a longstanding problem in our district, many feel the problem has gotten worse.
How we move traffic safely using street design and infrastructure is important. We need to provide routes for people to safely get to work and school using their preferred transportation modes.
We must act now to plan for the future of the Great Highway. By 2024, a consortium of local, state, and federal agencies will implement a plan to permanently close the Great Highway Extension (South of Sloat) due to erosion. That stretch of road is literally falling into the ocean, so all southbound traffic will be forced to turn left at Sloat. This will create new traffic pain points that we need to work to understand and mitigate now, and not wait until it happens. This is an opportunity to create a permanent oceanside park from Lincoln to Sloat as we solve the traffic concerns with community input.
Joel’s priority is to ensure our neighborhood streets are safer and more convenient for local residents while Ocean Beach remains open and accessible to all.
SFGATE: The closed Great Highway made the New York Times list of “52 Places for a Changed World”
"The Great Highway has become a unique destination — in a city full of them — to take in San Francisco’s wild Pacific Ocean coastline by foot, bike, skates or scooter, sample food trucks and explore local cafes, restaurants, record stores, bookstores and more,"
PARKS and ENVIRONMENT ESSAYS
Rugby is alive and well in the Sunset as today’s teens embrace a sport connected to Irish immigrants decades ago. Meet the coaches and young players who say when it comes to rugby “there’s just too much to like”
A retired construction worker puttering in his garage had a big idea to put his chainsaws to creative use. A series of benches carved from fallen Monterey Cypress trees have transformed the parkland along Sunset Boulevard by bringing neighbors and strangers together.
Do you still believe in San Francisco? I do. I’m running for supervisor to create our best San Francisco.
If neighborhood politics in San Francisco were a Netflix show, it would star 77-year-old Carol Dimmick. You’d get a combo of Schitt’s Creek and Parks and Recreation that reveals the humor and pathos of residents trying to improve their patch of life.
The Neighborhood News Network interviews Joel Engardio about what City Hall must do to maintain open space in San Francisco
Triangle Park and many more forgotten mini-parks like it throughout our city have a new relevance in the pandemic era. That’s why now is the time to get the Triangle Parks of San Francisco into shape.
The uglier national politics get, some seek solace in local matters. But what happens when local concerns end up feeling as divisive as the national ones? Two women trying to beautify San Francisco’s West Portal neighborhood offer some inspiration and cautionary tales.
My second-place showing against incumbent Norman Yee and three other challengers for District 7 supervisor feels like a success. Thousands of voters embraced my campaign’s forward-looking message, which will ultimately influence the direction of our city.
Joel Engardio speech on why moderates are the true progressives in San Francisco. Engardio was the guest speaker at the Golden Gate Breakfast Club in August 2014.
By Joel P. Engardio -- There must be others like me in San Francisco who embrace liberal values but also crave a city that runs on common sense. Forward-thinkers who believe in progress and aren’t afraid of change. True progressives.
By Joel P. Engardio -- For seven years, 64-year-old Janet Kessler has been voluntarily observing and photographing urban coyote behavior throughout San Francisco’s parks. She regularly logs six hours a day, taking up to 600 pictures. “People think coyotes are vermin, dangerous or the big bad wolf,” Kessler said. “But they’re wonderful animals we can live with if we treat them with respect and take the right precautions.”
By Joel P. Engardio -- A tree war in the little-known San Francisco neighborhoods of Forest Knolls and Miraloma Park – out of sight and mind on the foggy Westside – could get citywide attention in a tight California Assembly race between David Campos and David Chiu.
By Joel P. Engardio -- If you fear romping dogs and poop on your shoe, then beware of a U.S. National Park Service plan that will overrun your neighborhood parks with thousands more dogs.
By Joel P. Engardio -- If you are excited about bike sharing coming soon to San Francisco, the best advice is to be patient. If our experience is anything like New York's version, expect plenty of glitches.
By Joel P. Engardio -- It looks like the swampy soccer field riddled with gopher holes in Golden Gate Park will finally get fixed. But it will remain a battleground for San Francisco's soul. Tech newcomers versus retirees. Parents versus no kids. Sports players versus bird watchers. The rough, grassy area behind the Beach Chalet polarized them all. While everyone talked about a soccer field, the real debate was over identity. Is San Francisco a city of apps or should it be preserved in amber?
By Joel P. Engardio -- In San Francisco, there are plans to cut down large numbers of trees and replace them with native grass because ancient San Francisco was naturally treeless. The issue is ripe for parody because the call for tree destruction is coming from environmental activists who favor native plants. Meanwhile, many longtime residents and retired homeowners concerned with loss of windbreak and property value play the role of unlikely tree-huggers.
By Joel P. Engardio -- People and pets in San Francisco rely on parks for quality of life in an urban setting. City Hall must keep our parks fully accessible and funded without resorting to budget set-asides.