Great Highway

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The northern end of the Great Highway and Ocean Beach, as seen from Sutro Heights Park

The Great Highway is a road in San Francisco that forms the city's western edge against the Pacific Ocean. It runs for approximately 3.5 miles along Ocean Beach on the western side of the city. Its southern point is Skyline Boulevard (California State Highway 35) near Lake Merced, thence runs northward until Point Lobos Avenue and the Cliff House at its northern end.

The Great Highway is part of the Pan-American Highway, an international set of connecting roads from Alaska to Chile.

The Great Highway is also where Golden Gate Park begins its western edge.

During approximately half its length, from Sloat Boulevard to Golden Gate Park, the Great Highway is both a highway and a parallel street. The highway is on a raised berm, which was built atop a pre-existing wall built to keep the road from frequent encroachment by sand dunes. Atop the berm is a gravel jogging path and a cemented walking / bicycling path. The parallel street. also named 'Great Highway' is immediately adjacent below and to the east of the Highway, with buildings on its east side. The only access to the upper-level highway is at each end. There are crosswalks with traffic lights along this section to allow pedestrians to reach the beach.

Where Fulton Street meets the highway, there is a Dutch windmill, and near Lincoln Way there is the Murphy windmill. The N Judah, a San Francisco Municipal Railway streetcar line, ends at Great Highway and Judah, while the L Taraval, another streetcar line, ends two blocks from Great Highway at Wawona and 46th Avenue.