In April 2020, about a month after San Francisco declared a state of emergency to slow the spread of COVID-19, city officials closed Great Highway, an expressway that runs along Ocean Beach. Over several months, it became the second-most popular recreation area in the city after Golden Gate Park.

But some residents didn’t like it -- detours shunted traffic onto adjacent side streets and added a few minutes to commuting times.

So, in August 2021, Mayor London Breed reopened Great Highway to vehicles, sparking an uproar among residents who took for granted that the experiment would be made permanent.

Today, I want to give you a sense of what it’s like to experience a familiar space from a new perspective, what the controversy says about San Francisco's neighborhood-based politics, and also — how hard it is to reclaim public space from automobiles.