SAN FRANCISCO - A controversial park on San Francisco's west side took another step closer to being a reality. Park rangers closed the gate to traffic on the Great Highway on Friday morning and park supporters hope they don't open again.

On Saturday, the city officially announced that the Great Highway park will open on April 12. At the celebration, the Recreation and Park Department encouraged the public to get involved in a naming contest for the new park and provided a couple of examples from the 250 submissions already received.

The driverless cars picked up 589 parking tickets in San Francisco and 75 in Los Angeles last year, according to a Washington Post investigation.

Waymo robot taxis in San Francisco are programmed to follow the rules of the road but still got hundreds of tickets for parking violations last year.

Waymo told TechCrunch that they are working on the citations, which can occur for various reasons, such as when the vehicles are waiting for their next customer and briefly park in an illegal zone. They also may sometimes stop in commercial loading zones to drop off customers.

Waymo now has more than 300 driverless vehicles zipping passengers around San Francisco, but while they follow traffic laws, parking is another matter

San Francisco is a hot spot for Waymo vehicles, which operate without a human driver, but it seems the cars don't always play by the rules.