Construction on a barrier designed to prevent people from jumping from the San Diego-Coronado Bridge is expected to begin this year, with completion projected in 2028.
More than 400 people have jumped from the bridge since it was completed in 1969, and it is often cited as the second-most utilized of the nation’s “suicide bridges.”
The project has been years in the making, and in effort to expedite it, will be the first design-build project that the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has ever undertaken.
The deterrent will be a vertical net that will stretch along the expanse of the bridge. It will be between 7.5 and 8.5 feet higher than the current railing.
By constructing the deterrent as it is built, Caltrans shaved a year from the $140 million project’s timeline.
A Harvard University study found that 9 out of 10 survivors of suicide attempts do not ultimately die by suicide. Making suicide from atop the 200-foot Coronado Bridge so easy, advocates argue, robs those in struggle from the chance to reconsider.
Wayne Strickland, a 32-year veteran of the Coronado Fire Department and the founder of the grassroots movement, Coronado San Diego Bridge Collaborative For Suicide Prevention, is one of many in the community pushing for the deterrent.
San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge was once cited as the nation’s most popular bridge for suicide, but a similar deterrent was installed in 2023. Since then, incidents of jumping have plummeted: the bridge saw 2.48 suicides per month on average prior to construction, and 0.67 after installation.
The proposed barrier is not the first attempt at dissuading people from jumping. In 2019, four-inch spikes were installed atop the parapet at the edge of the bridge, but they have not stopped the problem.
Resources are available for those who are struggling. If you or someone you know needs help, call the 24-hour Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.
Although it isn’t mentioned in this article, I’m assuming that they will re-open the toll-booths to stick-it to we the tax payers to pay for it? Enough already!!!
Megan,
The Golden Gate Bridge suicide net is suspended under the Bridge and is horizontal so the view both of and from the Bridge is not obstructed. This would be a better option for the Coronado Bridge.
Megan:
I want to share that I am appalled by the proposed expenditure for nets on the bridge. By my rough calculations, the cost is almost $6300 per foot to install the cantilevered nets – in today’s dollars. And it appears there is no source of funding and the install date may be years in the future.
I realize there are many residents that feel that ANY amount of money (presumably somebody elses!) should be spent to abate both suicides on the bridge and the resulting traffic jams. But consider the following:
1) Your newspaper said that about 400 people have committed suicide on the bridge since 1969. I have also read 490 elsewhere. If it is a total of 490, that is about 9 suicides per year which is .002 of the roughly 4100 suicides in CA annually. The annual figure is also about 2% of the veteran suicides (about 570) in CA each year.
2) Projecting out 25 years at the same suicide rate (9/year absent the net) there may be an additional 225 suicides with the cost of preventing each suicide would be about $622,000!
I hate that people jump from the bridge and I certainly don’t like the resulting traffic jams. But there has to be a more cost effective way to do the “nets” if they MUST be done. My suggestion is to revisit alternatives, to include the same fencing that is on the bridge onramps on the east side? That type of fencing may diminish the view a bit, but I feel certain it could be done far less expensively and much sooner!
California reportedly has a $12,000,000,000 budget shortfall this FY. That number will go up dramatically in the next few years unless the legislature suddenly decides to exercise some fiscal restraint. Reducing the cost of the bridge barrier would be a great place to start.