Caltrans plans to resume construction of the Cold Spring Canyon Bridge suicide barrier early this year but hasn’t nailed down a specific start date.

Jim Shivers, a public information officer for Caltrans District 5, said custom parts for the fencelike barrier were ordered and manufactured in the months after the May 2011 ruling by Judge Thomas Anderle allowing the project to proceed.

The barrier will be 9 feet 7 inches tall and curve inward at the top. It will obstruct views from both sides of the bridge, which is about 400 feet above the ground on Highway 154 near San Marcos Pass.

Caltrans was sued by citizen group Friends of the Bridge, which objected to the agency’s project approval process and final design, and instead proposed hanging a net off the bridge.

“The reason we hadn’t started work up to this point is that all the components had to be manufactured,” Shivers said. “These are specialty parts that were made for this specific project.”

The cost of the project is expected to be about $3.1 million, with construction of the barrier totaling $768,000. The remaining funds will pay for the cost of holding public meetings, complying with a court order to review the environmental impact of the project, legal fees and publicity.

“We’re talking about four years of staff work on this particular project,” Shivers said.

He said the final cost remains unclear because of legal fees and the delay of construction from defending plans for a vertical barrier in court.

“There is something there that offends the sensibilities of local residents and taxpayers,” said Marc Chytilo, the attorney for Friends of the Bridge.

Before Chytilo even filed the lawsuit against Caltrans, he was told the estimated cost of the project was $4 million. Since then he said he has found it very difficult to find answers about how the money was spent.

Friends of the Bridge delayed construction by putting the spotlight on Caltrans for consulting with the State Historic Preservation Officer about the design after the publicly accessible environmental impact report was already published.

“It was done without giving the public the opportunity to participate,” Chytilo said.

The group Chytilo represents didn’t appeal the judge’s decision because once Caltrans revised its report there wasn’t much of a legal precedent to continue fighting.

“It’s hard not to recognize the human toll of people who have jumped off that bridge,” he said.

Chytilo also said Caltrans had paid him $125,000 in legal fees as ordered by the court in May.

— Noozhawk intern Daniel Langhorne can be reached at dlanghorne@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.