1997–2002

The de Young Museum threatens to move downtown blaming Sunday road closures for reduced revenue and simultaneously squashing momentum for car-free Saturdays. After a multi-year battle, de Young ultimately gets approval to rebuild in GGP, including an underground parking garage.

• After a failed bond measure to repair the de Young following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, the Museum’s Executive Board threatened to move the Museum downtown stating that “Sunday restrictions on motor traffic along JFK Drive reduced revenue needed to repair the building.” Additionally, they opposed potential plans to expand closures to Saturday stating that “attendance and revenue would drop 25-percent if JFK Drive, the park's main thoroughfare, were closed on Saturdays.”  (San Francisco Chronicle: source) 

• In response, Supervisor Michael Yaki offered a proposal that re-opened parts of the Sunday closure areas in order to “let Sunday motorists park near the de Young and other museums, which are on the eastern end of JFK Drive.” (San Francisco Chronicle: source)

• Yaki also stated that this plan would “allow for enough street parking in the park to eliminate the need to build a garage for museum-goers - a hot-button issue with environmentalists that sank a 1996 ballot measure to rebuild the museum at its present location.” He also said “In exchange [for the re-opened portions], JFK Drive would be off limits to cars on Sundays - and possibly Saturdays - from Stow Lake to the ocean.”  (San Francisco Chronicle: source)

• “Supervisor Leland Yee, a leader of the movement to find a way to keep the museum in the park, said the new report was biased. "There seems to be a deliberate underestimate of the number of people who can come to the Golden Gate Park site," he said.” (San Francisco Chronicle: source)

• At a Board of Supervisors Hearing on the debate between staying in GGP or moving downtown, “The de Young board said again it won't even consider another bond issue for staying in the park that doesn't include an underground parking garage.” (San Francisco Chronicle: source)

• Ultimately, in 2002, “After a seven-year battle to build a new M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors [gave] its blessing to the project,” including the parking garage. (San Francisco Chronicle: source)

2000

A ballot measure was introduced to expand road closures to Saturdays, but Supervisor Yuki introduced a competing prop that would delay road closures by five years. Both propositions were rejected.

• "With Proposition F, backers of the John F. Kennedy Drive closure are trying to extend that scene to Saturdays. But their campaign ran into an obstacle when Supervisor Michael Yaki put a competing initiative on the November ballot, Proposition G, that would delay Saturday closure for at least five years, until the underground parking garage that voters approved in 1998 is built below the park's Music Concourse...a nexus of neighborhood groups, museum officials and others have rallied around Proposition G, saying immediate Saturday closure would hurt attendance at the park's museums " (SF Gate: source)

2006–2008

SF’s Board of Supervisors approves car-free JFK on Saturdays on a 6-month trial basis (April - September); despite opposition by de Young.

(San Francisco Chronicle: source)

2017

De Young strongly opposes the expansion of car-free Saturdays to a year-round program; ultimately the proposal is defeated.

• In response to the proposal to expand car-free Saturdays to year-round, Mark Hollein, Director of the de Young Museum said, “I received your message regarding exploring the potential of extending the current six-month closure of JFK to a year-round closure,” Hollein wrote. “I cannot lend my support to additional road closures in the immediate vicinity of the de Young”. Hollein cited “fear of losing out-of-town visitors as reasons to oppose the street closure, as well as concern for people with disabilities and families who may travel by car.” (SF Examiner: source, SF Curbed: source)  

• “Miriam Newcomer, de Young’s director of public relations, says that weekend closures are bad for the museum and the park.” However, the only proof point she had on the impact of road closures to museum revenue is “when Saturday closures started 10 years ago our Saturday patronage went down 14.7 percent.” When pushed on the fact, she did not know how that number has changed over time or if it has rebounded. (SF Curbed: source)