Golden Gate Bridge suicide barrier study moves forward

By James Lanaras, Bay City News Service

March 11, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) - The Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District's board of directors voted this morning to separate into two projects a two-year, $2 million engineering and environmental study on the construction of a suicide deterrent project on the bridge.

District spokeswoman Mary Currie said the vote was 14-2. Three board members were absent.

The first project includes wind tunnel tests to determine structure movement, stability and the integrity of suicide deterrent designs with and without a median barrier on the span.

It is anticipated it would take four months to procure consultant services for the first project, and six more months to complete it once the contract is awarded. The first project would cost $625,000. The design concepts are expected to include a net under the bridge, a fence added to existing railing, and replacement of the existing railing with a new structure, Currie said.

The first project also includes a review of suicide deterrent studies done previously by the district and any studies that have been done for barriers on other long-span suspension bridges.

The second project will consist of full preliminary engineering, environmental and historical preservation studies, including a cost estimate of the construction project.

Currie said the first project is critical to the second, saying the first must produce "a usable work product that moves the project forward and that will be useful when project two is initiated.''

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission has committed $1.6 million toward the $2 million study but 20 percent local matching funds, or $400,000, are required. Currie said the district has $143,600 in local matching funds so far and $256,400 is still needed.

Marin County contributed $25,000 and the city and county of San Francisco contributed $100,000. Private donors gave $18,600 through the Psychiatric Foundation of Northern California, which has lobbied for a suicide barrier.

A board advisory committee last month approved proceeding with a phased approach to the study on a physical barrier to prevent people from jumping from the famous span.

The district's board of directors identified about a dozen criteria for a suicide prevention system.

The suicide barrier must impede the ability of an individual to jump from the bridge, must not cause safety or nuisance hazards to sidewalk users, must not interfere with security on the bridge and must have minimal visual and aesthetic impacts on the famous span from which 1,218 people have leapt since 1937.

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