If you've never biked the Mission Creek bridge, congratulations on your life choices. For everyone else, the experience is a white-knuckle cocktail of embedded rail tracks, metal grating that treats bike tires like an ice rink, impatient drivers crossing the double yellow, and zero margin for error. As one local put it: "I hate crossing this bridge. The way that it has the metal grate gives almost no traction to bicycle tires."

This isn't a one-off. Another SF resident pointed out that there was a fatality at the intersection just south of this bridge on Channel Street last month, adding bluntly: "It's a terrible spot for everyone. SFMTA needs to figure out solutions ASAP."

Hard to argue with that. The 4th Street corridor around Mission Bay has exploded with new housing, offices, and foot traffic over the past decade, yet the infrastructure feels frozen in time. The bridge design forces cyclists into an impossible choice: ride the center to avoid the tracks and risk getting buzzed by cars, or hug the side and risk catching a wheel in the rails. Neither option is safe, and a family with kids shouldn't have to game-theory their way across a bridge.

SFMTA loves to talk about Vision Zero — the city's pledge to eliminate traffic deaths. But Vision Zero requires more than press releases. It requires actually redesigning known hazard points before people get hurt, not after. The 4th Street bridge has been a documented problem for years. Cyclists know it. Drivers know it. Apparently, the only people who don't know it work at City Hall.

We're glad this family walked away. Next time, someone might not. Fix the bridge.