A plan to remove cars from Balboa Park’s Plaza de Panama will face its biggest hurdle in a few weeks. The City Council is due to vote July 9 on the plan, which has sparked fiery discussions and divided community groups and park institutions in the two years since Mayor Jerry Sanders and philanthropist Irwin Jacobs announced it together.

Today, the plaza in front of several central park museums is a complicated mess of cars, roundabout traffic and pedestrians. The city has planned for decades to return it to solely pedestrian use.