There's a pedestrian bridge at San Bruno Avenue and Harkness that connects upper Visitacion Valley with the Bayview, running underneath the Bayshore Freeway to 3rd Street. It was built in 1970. It's owned by Caltrans. And it's been locked, fenced off, and left to decay for at least fifteen years.

Let that sink in: a piece of public infrastructure — paid for with public dollars, designed to help residents cross a freeway — has been abandoned since roughly the George W. Bush administration. Google Maps imagery confirms the bridge has been overgrown and shuttered going back to at least 2009. A chain-link fence runs down the center of the sidewalk on the Bayview side. The bridge itself is blocked off and locked at one end.

Why? As one local put it bluntly, "Back then it was used too often for crime and attracted unwanted people. Longer answer likely included maintenance costs, local resident complaints." The pathway reportedly became a magnet for encampments and graffiti — the kind of slow deterioration that happens when a city and state decide it's cheaper to lock something up than to actually manage it.

Another SF resident recalled crossing that very bridge regularly as a kid in the '90s and early 2000s, back when it was still functional. Now it's just another relic.

This is a pattern San Francisco knows well. Rather than address the root problems — crime, encampments, lack of maintenance — the government's go-to solution is to simply remove the resource from public use. Lock the bridge. Close the bathroom. Shut down the park. Problem solved, right?

Meanwhile, the city spends billions talking about transit equity, pedestrian infrastructure, and connecting underserved neighborhoods. Visitacion Valley and the Bayview are exactly the communities that could benefit from a safe, direct freeway crossing. Instead, residents get a longer walk, fewer options, and a rusting monument to bureaucratic neglect.

Caltrans owns this bridge. The city benefits from its existence. Someone — anyone — should be asking: what would it actually cost to reopen it, light it properly, and keep it safe? Because right now, the message to residents in these neighborhoods is pretty clear: your connectivity isn't worth the maintenance budget.