Being caught in traffic is a soul killer. As nice as car seats, air conditioners, stereos and driver assistance get, when you are in a car it is almost never the destination.

It’s a moment of the in-between. It’s the daily dose of travel errand that gets you where you need to be.

And when we think about the Hawthorne Overcrossing, the Bend bike and pedestrian bridge that will one day span the Bend Parkway and the railroad, that’s what we zero in on. It should help Bend dodge some soul killing.

Bend City councilors last week narrowed the choice of overcrossing design to a single tower with cables supporting the platform below. Councilors didn’t choose the cheapest or most expensive option. They didn’t choose the truss design, which was the cheapest and got strong support from public feedback. They chose a cable-stayed, single tower design for $29 million to $36 million. A truss design would have cost maybe $27 million to $33 million.

For the majority of councilors, the decision was about more than cost. The overcrossing is going to be there for decades. It is going to make a noticeable impression for people driving into Bend for the first time. A truss design would be utilitarian. The tower design is striking and alludes to the mountains.

The cost matters. The design matters. And some will fault councilors for not rigidly adhering to the direction they got from some public input to go for the cheaper, truss design.

What matters most for Bend is something different. The overcrossing opens up a much safer way for people walking or biking to get from one side of town to the other. It makes it safer for drivers of vehicles, too, because it gets pedestrians and bicyclists out of the flow of traffic for what are now some tricky intersections.

And you know what is not a soul killer? Walking or biking where you need or want to go.

We know that is not for everybody and people can’t do it every time. But what the Hawthorne Overcrossing will do is open it up to more people and more of the time. And that beats sitting in traffic.