By Rachel Brahinsky

Environmentalists and other opponents of the planned Golden Gate Park garage appear to have gotten at least some good news during a July 2 briefing by San Francisco Superior Court Judge James Warren, who's weighing whether to alter the project.

The briefing, an informal preview of a ruling that's expected by mid-July, eliminated several avenues garage opponents had tried to use to kill the project. Warren indicated that he would rule that a California Environmental Quality Act lawsuit against the garage has no merit and that he would uphold the city's financing and design plans – except for one key point.

While the city had hoped to build the 800-space underground garage with one of its two entrances just inside the park, near the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, Warren said the structure would instead have to be designed with all entrances outside the park, as indicated in Proposition J, the 1998 ballot measure that authorized the plan.

Keeping the entrance out of the park could be an environmental victory – if it reduces the impact of cars in the park and increases park accessibility to pedestrians. But as with each step in this years-long dispute, the real meaning of this latest announcement is not yet clear. That's because, according to Mike Elzey of the Golden Gate Park Concourse Authority, garage supporters could try to build the second entrance as a surface road, instead of using a tunnel that originates outside the park.

"We're looking forward to immediately convening a public process to determine the new design," said Elzey, whose agency is charged with enforcing Prop. J. "There are a number of alternatives that will technically comply with Prop. J."

Elzey said a surface road could be an option. But by the city's own arguments before the courts, a surface road design could be an environmental disaster.

With an outside entrance to the garage, the city argued in its opening brief, "traffic would increase because drivers inside the park would have to leave the park and re-enter." That, the city argued, wouldn't conform to the principal purposes of Prop. J, which pictured a pedestrian "oasis" in the Music Concourse area where the garage is planned.

Katherine Roberts, a Haight-Ashbury activist who's fighting the garage, told the Bay Guardian the city would have a hard time reconciling that argument with its new position that an out-of-park entrance might be feasible.

Roberts will likely ask that Warren halt the entire project until it's redesigned and its environmental impact is reevaluated. If the garage can't be built in a way that's consistent with Prop. J's goals, she hopes to stop construction entirely. "We want to enjoin the entire project until the city proves they can do it," she said. "It's going to be pretty hard for them to reconcile that inconsistency."

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