Ultimate Barrier Solution Meshed but What Were the Alternatives?

Task force considered plenty of options before sticking with a fence atop Cold Spring Canyon Bridge

By Giana Magnoli, Noozhawk Staff Writer | Published on 05.03.2010

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In 2005, community pressure led to the creation of a task force to consider suicide prevention measures for Cold Spring Canyon Bridge.

A number of barrier alternatives were considered to supplement the bridge rail, which stands 3 feet, 7 inches from the roadway and 2 feet, 7 inches from the concrete curbs. After much debate, it was decided that grid/wire mesh barriers would be erected along each side of the bridge and running its entire 1,200-foot length. The 9-foot-7-inch fencing would use welded wire in a square grid pattern, spaced one to two inches apart. “Due to the small opening, which would be difficult to gain a foothold or handhold, the mesh would not be scalable by most people,” according to the environmental impact report.

The barrier design was selected based on an environmental and aesthetic analysis, and was determined to meet the purpose and need of the project. All of the alternatives were recognized to diminish the historical quality of the bridge, which is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, the federal government’s official list of structures, districts, sites, buildings and objects deemed worthy of preservation.

Alternatives that were eliminated after consideration:

» A fence with horizontal posts curved inward, that was considered too “ladder-like”

» A safety net, which was considered unrealistic given the remoteness of the location and danger to rescue personnel

» A partial barrier, which didn’t span the length of the bridge, could be avoided

» Restricting parking access at pullouts and lookout points

» Prohibiting pedestrians from walking on Highway 154 was considered difficult to enforce

» Implementing more interactive measures such as call boxes, video cameras, surveillance patrols, signs, lighting and public education was also considered

Suicide prevention strategies were discussed by the 2005 Cold Spring Canyon Arch Bridge Suicide Prevention Committee, which included representatives from ACCESS Team, Caltrans, Family Service Agency’s 2-1-1 Helpline, the Glendon Association, law enforcement, Santa Barbara County, the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments and the county Department of Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Services. The strategies discussed included:

» Signage with suicide hotline numbers, call boxes and/or video cameras

» Lighting

» Safety barrier or fence

» Safety net

» Restricted pedestrian, bicycle and parking access

» Public education and increased awareness that dialing 9-1-1 is the best way to notify law enforcement in emergencies

Noozhawk’s Cold Spring Canyon Bridge Series

» Click here for free suicide prevention resources that are available 24 hours a day.

» Click here for the first story in Noozhawk’s four-day series on Cold Spring Canyon Bridge: Public Safety, Preservation Collide on Cold Spring Canyon Bridge.

» Click here for Day Two’s main story: Creativity a Hallmark of Bridge Barrier Alternatives, Funding.

» Click here for Day Three’s main story: For Barrier Opponents, There’s No Bridging This Divide.

» Click here for Day Four’s main story: Bridge Barrier Debate May Be Resolved in Span of a Month.

» Click here for Noozhawk publisher Bill Macfadyen’s explanation of our series.

» Click here for a timeline of Cold Spring Canyon Bridge.

» Click here for a list of landmark bridges around the world employing suicide-prevention barriers.

» Click here for Cold Spring Canyon Bridge facts and engineering numbers.

» Leading Off: Just What Can We Say, and How? Suicide is a touchy topic for the media. Here’s what Noozhawk does, and why.

— Noozhawk staff writer Giana Magnoli can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

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» MarcMcGinnes on 05.04.10 @ 02:56 PM

Dear Ms. Magnoli, Mr. Macfadyen, and readers,

To understand the story of the troubled Caltrans/SBCAG proposal to enclose the entire span of the Cold Spring Bridge within so-called suicide prevention barriers that tower 9-feet-7-inches above the roadway, one needs to consider a couple of very important facts that are not found in this article.

Caltrans intentionally deprived those concerned about the impacts of its costly (initially budgeted at $3.256 million) from being a part of its hand-picked Cold Spring Canyon Arch Bridge Suicide Prevention Committee. Documents in the public record show that Caltrans did invite the membership of representatives of community environmental protection and historic preservation groups and that it declined written requests for such membership.

Documents prove that Caltrans did not intend to take into account concerns about the impacts of its barriers proposal until AFTER it was approved without full environmental impact review required by state law. This meant that the excluded groups had to press hard from the outside to get Caltrans to undertake such review, and when Caltrans failed to undertake such review in the manner required by law, it became necessary to take Caltrans to court. The failures of Caltrans were not merely “technical” or “procedural” in nature.

Another important fact that this article does not mention (and that I hope will be revealed in a subsequent article) is that the excluded environmental and historic preservation groups presented to Caltrans early in its planning process a “human barriers alternative” that is, according to its author, a nationally prominent expert on suicide prevention in general and suicide from bridges in particular, a superior way to actually save the lives of suicidal people rather than merely diverting them to take their lives elsewhere.

Lastly (for now), it is a fact that Caltrans has relied throughout this process upon very poor advice from its so-called experts (Glendon in particular) about what suicide barriers on the Cold Spring Bridge will actually accomplish. UCSB Professor Garrett Glasgow has shown that bridge barriers do not appear to do anything more than to displace the problem of suicide from the bridge to other places in the community.

Is mere displacement of suicide away from the bridge to other places in the community reason enough to spend nearly $4 million in limited public funds and to uglify this magnificent bridge—a community treasure—to boot? What sort of “bargain” would that be?

I hope that the above will be helpful to those seeking to understand the nature of the conflict concerning the Caltrans/SBCAG tall barriers proposal.

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute.

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Ultimate Barrier Solution Meshed but What Were the Alternatives?

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