Community Post: Suicide Barriers Alternative on Cold Springs Bridge

Unfortunately, I don't have a way of linking to the actual, alternative proposal, if anyone has one -- please pass it along.

--------Friends of the Bridge Community Post/Press Release-----------

Opponents of a CalTrans proposal to install barriers on the Cold Spring
Bridge today formally submitted to that agency a detailed alternative
project proposal that they claim provides superior suicide prevention and
life-saving measures at a small fraction of the $1,000,000 allocated for
barriers and which would not require potentially-defacing physical
alterations of the bridge. By law CalTrans will be required to incorporate
the alternative into its project review and evaluation processes and to
make a carefully considered determination about which approach to pursue.

The new proposal is based in part on the study recently released by UCSB
Professor Garrett Glasgow revealing the lack of any evidence that bridge
barriers do anything other than diverting the problem elsewhere. The
Glasgow report concludes that "there is no evidence that a suicide
prevention barrier on the Cold Spring Bridge would save lives."
Accordingly, the new proposal asserts that "the barriers proposal amounts
to nothing more than a misguided and costly suicide diversion effort that
bears almost no legitimate relation to any traffic safety problem within
the scope of CalTrans' mission and primary functions."

The new proposal discloses that the $1,000,000 allocated for barriers was
taken from funds budgeted for "Collision Reduction-Safety Improvements."

In formulating the new proposal, its authors from the newly-formed citizens
group "Friends of the Bridge" incorporated a number of the features of a
plan adopted earlier this year by the New York State Bridge Authority to
address the problem of suicidal behavior on the 5 bridges under its
jurisdiction. The New York plan rejected the idea of installing barriers,
choosing "instead [to] construct a 'human barrier' that will outperform any
physical barrier and save more lives" and concluding that "preventing
suicides on [the] bridges will most likely occur if we recognize the
situation for what it is: a mental health problem that won't be solved by a
technical 'quick fix' in the form of a 'curtain of steel'...."

Elements of the "human barrier" approach now proposed for the Cold Spring
Bridge include setting clear policies and training methods to assure the
safety of law enforcement officer and others when encountering persons
demonstrating suicidal behavior on the bridge, installing call boxes
connecting to a specialized Lifeline suicide prevention counseling service,
and installation of surveillance cameras to provide continuous monitoring
of activities on the bridge.

The proposal points out that its features could be fully implemented within
a very short period, whereas CalTrans has estimated that the barriers
proposal faces many months of review and design efforts. According to Marc
McGinnes, one of the authors of the new proposal, "The jig is up, we now
know for sure that barriers are boondoggle, and the time has come to
CalTrans to change its course."