Sunset Dunes just turned one year old, and Rec and Park is rolling out the celebration cake with a headline number: 1.7 million visits in its first year. That's an average of 4,900 people per day, with weekends surging to 7,200. The single biggest day? A staggering 18,700 during the SF Half Marathon in February.

Let's be honest — those are impressive numbers. People are showing up, dune grasses are growing (2,200 planted by 300 volunteers), birders have documented 87 species, and the park has clearly become a fixture of the Outer Sunset. As one local put it, "damn, Sunset Dunes is poppin."

But let's also be honest about what the victory lap glosses over.

This park exists because San Francisco permanently closed the Great Highway to vehicle traffic — a decision that remains deeply divisive. One SF resident captured the tension well: "I understand it made locals angry because their commute has skyrocketed due to not having the Great Highway anymore. That said, the peace and joy it has brought so many people is very valuable."

That's a fair and generous framing. But "peace and joy" doesn't pay the bills for the Sunset District families now burning extra gas and time on longer commutes. It doesn't address the traffic that's been rerouted onto residential streets. And a visit count — which likely includes repeat visitors, joggers passing through, and marathon participants who didn't exactly choose the venue — isn't the same as a cost-benefit analysis.

Here's what we'd actually like to see from Rec and Park: What has the park cost to build and maintain? What's the measurable traffic impact on surrounding neighborhoods? How do those 53% weekday visits break down — are commuters stuck in nearby traffic being counted as "park visitors"?

1.7 million visits is a great marketing number. But good governance means showing your work, not just your highlight reel. San Francisco has a habit of declaring success by the metrics it chooses to measure while ignoring the ones it doesn't. Sunset Dunes is a nice park. It might even be a great park. But "people showed up" isn't the whole story — and residents who got steamrolled in the process deserve more than being told to enjoy the view.