So not crumbling infrastructure this time. Just good old-fashioned bad driving.

Still, the incident managed to snarl traffic and send water flooding into the street at one of the city's busiest corridors — a corridor, you may recall, that the city spent $300 million and over a decade redesigning as part of the Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit project. That project was supposed to modernize the avenue and improve transit flow. And yet here we are, watching a busted hydrant turn the intersection into a splash pad.

Look, a driver hitting a fire hydrant isn't a policy failure. Accidents happen. But it's worth asking: how quickly did the city respond? How long was water running before crews shut it off? San Francisco loses millions of gallons annually to leaks and breaks in its aging water system — a system the SFPUC has acknowledged needs billions in upgrades. Every gallon wasted matters, whether the cause is a corroded pipe or a wayward sedan.

The broader point is this: San Francisco's infrastructure is perpetually one bad day away from a mess. We pour enormous sums into marquee projects while the basic stuff — pipes, hydrants, response times — gets the back seat. Residents deserve a city that can handle the routine emergencies without turning a major avenue into a wading pool.

Here's hoping the hydrant gets replaced faster than Van Ness got its bus lanes.