Barrier may, or may not, prevent Cold Springs Bridge suicide attempts

 

A proposal by Caltrans to build a suicide barrier at the Cold Springs Arch Bridge, seen as a necessity by one faction of the valley community and as an expensive eyesore by another, could face an up-or-down decision May 14 by the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments.

A public meeting of the association will take place in Santa Maria on that date.

The bridge, opened in 1964 and renowned as an architecturally significant structure, has been the location of 44 suicides, the first only three months after its opening and the most recent in February 2008 when a 60-year-old doctor parked his car at the bridge and vaulted over its 30-inch railing to his death.

 

Caltrans has proposed a barrier, originally projected to cost $600,000 and estimated by some nearer $3 million, to prevent persons contemplating suicide from diving off the bridge.

Opponents of the plan say that the money would be better spent on highway traffic devices that have a better chance of protecting more than one person per year.

Opponents of the barrier, an ad hoc group known as “Friends of the Bridge,” say that recent studies done by UC Santa Barbara Associate Professor of Political Science Garrett Glasgow show that barriers such as the one proposed do not prevent any suicides. 

In addition to Caltrans, the proposal for the barrier has gained support from several local lawmakers, law enforcement agencies, and community groups. Assemblymember Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, 3rd District Supervisor Brooks Firestone, the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments, the Sheriff’s Department, the California Highway Patrol, and the suicide prevention group The Glendon Association all have expressed support for the project. 

 

Two studies, one done by Richard Seiden of the University of California at Berkeley, and a second by Glasgow, illustrate competing sides of the argument.  The Seiden study was a follow-up on 515 individuals who had attempted suicide by jumping or trying to jump from the world’s leading site for suicide, the Golden Gate Bridge connecting San Francisco to Marin County. 

The conclusion the Seiden study came to was that the hypothesis that bridge jumpers will surely and inexorably “just go someplace else” was not supported by the data collected.

The study conducted by Glasgow concluded that so-called prevention barriers do little more than prevent suicides at a particular location.  “I found that while there was evidence that suicide prevention barriers can deter suicides at a particular location, there was no evidence that these barriers save lives.

 

“We must consider the possibility of displacement — that is, will placing a barrier on the Cold Springs Bridge simply lead those intending to commit suicide to jump at another location?”

“This is a boondoggle,” Marc McGinness, a spokesman for Friends of the Bridge, said of the Caltrans proposal.

“Caltrans initially said the cost for the barrier would be about $600,000…now the cost will be almost $3 million,” he said.

  McGinness also said that the Glendon group misrepresented the Caltrans study by implying that the barrier would reduce the total number of suicides countywide, not just the number at the scenic bridge.