About a year ago San Francisco opened its most interesting park in decades: Tunnel Tops Park in the Presidio.
It’s a small park that could be easily overlooked as yet another spot with a nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge (weather permitting, of course.) But that would be underselling this park. Despite its small size, Tunnel Tops Park heals two disconnected parts of the Presidio National Park.
Going back a few decades, the land that’s now Tunnel Tops Park was an elevated highway section called Doyle Drive. This was deemed unsound after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and was eventually replaced a new series of tunnels known as Presidio Parkway.
With the highway underground, the new park on top of it connects the upper level of the Presidio which includes the Walt Disney Museum and the Presidio gift shop to Crissy Field at the edge of the bay below.
The park has a rotating series of food trucks with a plan to eventually add a permanent restaurant to a legacy building nearby.
You can visit Tunnel Tops Park by taking Muni’s 43 Masonic or via the free Presidio GO Shuttle to the Presidio Transit Center. It’s completely free but expect crowds when the weather is nice.