SAN FRANCISCO – It’s been a difficult eight years for Fairfax resident John Brooks, but a ceremony at the Golden Gate Bridge on Thursday marking the beginning of work on a suicide barrier project brought a small slice of satisfaction.
“As satisfying as this is and seeing everyone here, we wish the occasion was for something else,” said Brooks, who lost his adopted daughter, Casey, to suicide at the bridge in 2008. She was 17.
Brooks has agitated for the barrier ever since, has counseled young people about depression and wrote a book about his experience.
“We did this so other people don’t have to face the pain and heartache,” he said. “Eight years ago I never thought we would be at this point.”
The point the bridge district officials now find themselves is the beginning of building a barrier that is projected to be finished in January 2021. The Golden Gate Bridge board unanimously agreed in December to award the building contract to Oakland-based Shimmick/Danny’s Joint Venture. The project is expected to cost as much as $204 million. Any unspent dollars would be shared proportionately among the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Caltrans and the bridge district, the agencies funding the work.
Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, praised the Brooks and other families who leaned on politicians and agencies for the barrier.
“It would have not happened without these incredible families, and the way they have taken their pain and grief and turned it into purpose,” said Huffman, speaking inside a tent at the Bridge Plaza that had been set up for the event. “They have stayed focused with that purpose with incredible patience, because this has taken a long time, and incredible resolve.”
Many of those families put plants into a hillside near the Bridge Plaza as part of the Thursday ceremony.
“Today marks the beginning of the end of suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge,” said Kymberlyrenee Gamboa of Fair Oaks, whose 18-year-old son, Kyle, jumped from the span in September 2013. “Soon, no family will experience the devastation and tragedy of a suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge.”
FEDERAL FUNDS
Backers of a suicide barrier got a boost in July 2012 when President Barack Obama signed a transportation bill that includes language allowing federal funds to flow to the project. That transportation bill contained crucial wording allowing funding for suicide prevention including safety rails and nets on bridges.
“What a bittersweet day this is,” said Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco. “The joy of the prospect of saving lives, the sadness of those we lost.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein recalled the suicide of friend Duane Garrett, a Tiburon resident who jumped from the span in 1995. Garrett was her campaign chairman in her Senate races in the 1990s.
“None of us knew the other side,” she said. “For many years I had to wonder why. And there are many families here who wonder why. I think no one should assume fault. It’s part of our society. It’s part of the lure of this bridge. The time for a net has really come.”
The first evidence the public will see of the project is construction of a fence on the span next month designed to protect workers below, according to bridge officials. The actual placing of the net will begin in mid-2018. The net still must be fabricated.
NET A DETERRENT
The project involves installing the equivalent of seven football fields of netting along the 1.7-mile bridge. It will be made of stainless steel, marine-grade cable to stand up to the elements, bridge officials said. The bridge district’s barrier plan calls for a net extending 20 feet below and 20 feet from the side of the span, although it will have to be modified in certain areas because of surrounding terrain.
The net will be gray instead of red to better blend with the water. The net will not be visible to motorists driving on the bridge, and is designed to be sensitive to views of and from the span.
While people could still jump into the net, such occurrences might be rare because the net would act as a deterrent, bridge officials have said. And at least one study showed that people don’t go elsewhere to end their lives.
“The University of California studied 500 people who were taken off the bridge and 10 years later 96 percent were alive or died of natural causes,” said Eve Meyer, executive director of San Francisco Suicide Prevention. “Suicide is time limited. If people don’t find a lethal option, it won’t happen.”
