Safe Passage over the Canyon

Thank you Sally.

It is quite simple: the barrier on the Cold Spring Bridge will save lives, at a bargain cost (yearly cost 1/400 of what is spent yearly on all County mental health services).

Many of the potential jumpers will not go on to kill themselves another way... your point that for every 1 successful suicides there 100 to 200 attempts is quite strong.

Thank you for this well written first hand explanation and account. I love this idea that people can be talked down with the offer of tea and conversation with a stranger, a simple social service. I think that although the barrier opponents are overly obsessed with the historical 10 second view, they also suggest that funds could be better spent with social services and perhaps a suicide prevention call box at the bridge. They could be right, I doubt it, because social services have a low ranking here in the U.S.A. Funding for hard-scape projects such as the barrier cannot be used for social services. Then there is this new pesky Toronto study that seemingly supports the barrier opponent opinion that barriers do not reduce suicide rates. I think the conclusion in the study could be wrong because as our local suicide rates went up, in the Toronto study the suicide rate was static. There could be other unaccountable reasons for the static number, including the barrier built there or perhaps someone new and unaccounted for in the study who is offering conversation and tea. Regardless I think considering all factors, including the minor view loss, the barrier should be constructed.

FWIW, here is a link to the Australia guy:

http://gawker.com/5563648/meet-the-au...

Beautifully, intelligently and calmly written, with a deep empathy for people in trouble.

I have read many comments by posters that persons wanting to commit suicide will find a way even if the bridge is not available. The fact that the two people in Australia and China can reverse those wishing to commit suicide flatly refutes those wild, unfounded arguments.

The opponents to the barrier, in my view, use cold-hearted, unbelievably superficial reasoning to deny the barrier. In a world gone mad with lack-of-caring for one's neighbor rhetoric, your article was sorely needed.

Don, concerning that Toronto study, it showed that after installation of the Bloor St. Viaduct Barrier:

1)The number of Toronto suicides per year went down, from 253.4 to 225.4.

2)The number of province of Ontario suicides per year went down, from 836.4 to 752.5.

3)The number of Toronto suicides by jumping off of all Toronto bridges per year went down, from 17.9 per year to 14.2 per year.

1) and 2) are also statistically significant, while 3) has a 1 in 5 chance of actually being a random fluctuation.

Anti-barrier folks have focused on a new category unmentioned up until the Toronto study: all suicides by jumping, including, jumping off of ladders, chests of drawers, out of windows, etc. That is the category that stayed constant after introduction of the Bloor St. Viaducts barrier: 56.4 per year in Toronto before, 56.6 per year after. Jumping from buildings, a subcategory, increased from 38.5 to 42.7 per year; that increase is not significant, and there is a 1 in 3 chance it is a random fluctuation.

See for yourself at:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/3...

sevendolphins; Thanks. I've followed your previous analysis in previous articles. It really helps. My comments were geared toward our local opponents and their analysis and arguments, which I am sure are soon to follow here. Keep up the analysis and comments.

Thanks Don. Lies, damned lies, and statistics, as Mark Twain said. The challenge of statistics is they are not real clear in their answers, and can be shaded lots of different ways, unless something is already obvious (like smoking causing death).

A causal relationship between the Toronto/Ontario suicide rate decline and the Viaduct barrier would be very hard to prove. But it is possible that all the discussion about that barrier did 2 things:

1)Stimulated some bridge jumps that would not have otherwise happened. Maybe we saw a local version of that in 2009 with the Cold Spring Bridge. If so, one should wait a few years before judging the suicide by jumping rate in Toronto.

2)Communicated to a much larger group of people through all the publicity that others really care about suicide and preventing it, and some of those people consequently did not commit suicide. I don't know how to prove this, but it is a real possibility. Publicity, while being a two-edged sword (see above) still has value in conveying messages, like, community concern for the suicidal.

I want to thank Sally for her article. I have been a long time supporter of the construction of a barrier. Just yesterday I heard noted California historian Kevin Starr discuss how some suicides are impulsive acts and if deterred, the person reconsiders. I pray no one else loses their life on the bridge while work is delayed.

Thank you, Sally, for your thoughtful, eloquent, and courageous words of support. We hope that your contribution to the debate will help to prevent further loss of life at Cold Spring Bridge.

For anyone in crisis and looking for help, please call 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Your loved ones want you to live.

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Get the facts. Help stop the tragedy at Cold Spring Bridge. Support the barrier.
http://www.stopthetragedy.org/

Sign our online petition at:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/51/sup...

[Comments by StoptheTragedy are posted by the administrator of the website www.stopthetragedy.org, who does not post comments on this forum under any other user name or alias.]

I think you nailed it with the point about the guys in Australia and China. We dont need a suicide fence at all, we just need someone standing on the bridge with a nice cup of tea waiting for jumpers to pass by. Thank you for volunteering Sally, you have saved the city millions of dollars that would have been wasted on a fence.

LogicCannon touches on some truth, which is that the Friends of The Cold Spring Bridge advocate a "human barriers" approach that combines a higher railing for general safety, surveillance cameras, and two-way communication boxes to talk jumpers down. "Fencing in" every high point from potential jumpers is not really feasible, as I'm sure most reasonable people would agree. The other uncomfortable truth is that suicides from the Cold Spring Bridge have increased dramatically ever since Caltrans and their supporters started talking about a barrier. This isn't to say that, if you don't talk about it, they'll all go away; it is to say that, if you obsess about it and publicize it, they will come in greater numbers. Let it be.

The Nanny State at its best.Perhaps if we just fence off and wrap up every public spot, people will stop killing themselves.

Believe me...people who are determined to kill themselves will do so.

Is this latest bit of nonsense actually about preventing suicides, or is it really just ensuring that they happen where the rest of us won't have to see them occurring?

Rather than getting to the root of problems, or heaven forbid, taking five minutes out of our oh-so-busy lives to actually be PRESENT in the lives of others in need...our society instead responds by shifting the Nanny State into high gear, protecting us from ourselves, legislating, preventing, shoving, pushing and making sure the sensitive souls don't have to see anything upsetting.

We don't dig down and get at the roots of social problems. We don't address these things. We instead build an unbelievably ugly barrier, destroying the view for those of us who aren't bent on killing ourselves, while making ourselves feel that sense of self-righteous satisfaction for having saved the world from itself, and driving the desperate and depressed to do their dirty deeds behind locked doors where we don't have to witness their pain playing out in a public venue.

When will we EVER get it?

Thanks for the well-written article, Sally. People are more important than the view from the bridge, even in ocean and valley view-obsessed Santa Barbara. Anyway, people should be paying attention to the road, not the view, when they are driving down the mountain. If the proposed barrier spares one life and avoids all the pain suffered by folks like Sally by making a suicide a little tougher to accomplish, then it is worth it. Might also help avoid a few traffic accidents if folks who really want to enjoy the view stop their cars and check out the view in safety. John Douglas

Thank you, Sally, for yours and I am sad for your loss. Having over the course of a life thought about suicide, I can appreciate how it's often a one-time, impulse-driven action. At the same time, I did support the no barrier side of things, valuing the simplicity of the beautiful view from the bridge.

I've thought about it a lot --- and the genie is now out: unfortunately, not talking about it (and it is sort of insulting to say obsessing about it) is not a solution. It's not possible to go back, to close Pandora's box.

If there could be human intervention there 24/7 that would be the best solution, but to sneeringly suggest volunteers, as "LogicCannon," is insulting. Surveillance cameras? And they would broadcast to someone sitting in SB or Painted Cave or? who then would broadcast over a loudspeaker, "don't jump" -- that would probably have the opposite effect. Relatively few intent on suicide would seize upon the "two way communication boxes to talk jumpers down" - not sure what GregMohr meant by that, but probably not "down."

The issue is not fencing in all high places, although I think the most dramatic, ie. the courthouse view tower is fenced in or at least made more difficult to surmount, but this one bridge that seems to beckon. If those opposing the barriers can guarantee that there would be someone on duty there 24/7, then I'd agree with them. But if not, there has to be a way to protect the would-be suicide, the rescuers AND the families. Hopefully, that will be the least visually offensive as possible.

I disagree with diverting limited funds, earmarked for projects aimed at improving the safety of people who want to live, to create this bridge barrier. Barriers or not, people will kill themselves.

As to "our constitutionally given right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," I believe that includes the right to end our lives, too. I cannot judge, when someone decides to take their own life, whether it makes sense or not. Only they can.

Dear Ms. Hughes,

You have my deepest sympathy for the loss of your eldest son. Like many others who oppose the Caltrans fencing barriers plan, I have experienced the anguish of the death by suicide of dearly beloved ones.

Thus, the mission of those of us who have come together as Friends of the Bridge is to see that what is done on the bridge will most effectively serve to save the lives of individuals who go there in the awful grip of suicidal intent or impulse, and to see that this is accomplished without defacing the unique grace and beauty of this justly famous single-arch-span and degrading the wonderful of experience of being practically airborne in the midst of such while passing over it in our cars, bikes, or on foot.

In keeping with that mission, we developed a suicide prevention plan for the bridge in consultation with one of the nation's leading experts on suicide prevention, and we presented it to Caltrans officials in 2007, accompanied by the comments of that expert explaining that fencing barriers were an inferior means of suicide prevention for the reason that they mostly served merely to divert suicidal individuals to take their lives elsewhere, absent the intervention of human beings. Our plan for the Cold Spring Bridge is based on the "human barriers plan" designed by this expert and adopted by the New York State Bridge Authority and that has been in effective use as a live-saving suicide prevention plan since 2007 on the five bridges under its jurisdiction.

Long-needed higher safety railings, closed-circuit cameras, call-boxes directly linked to qualified helpers, and better training for uniformed first-responders are the main components of the "human barriers plan" that we and others believe to be far more effective at saving lives, not merely-- by no means other than cold, hard steel-- diverting suicidal people to take their lives elsewhere in our community.

In sympathy, and working for the best way to save lives and to preserve beauty,

Marc McGinnes,
a Friend of the Bridge

Bravo. I could have ranted not better than what you did in not ranting but with dignity and grace and heartfelt levelheadedness. Something I ofttimes completely lack.

That said, opponents to the barrier will fail and the preventative measures will be employed. Count on it. And they can then, in happy protest, drive the long way around and STFU for good.

(Darn, I almost got through it without . . . oh well).

"Count on it," sez you, Draxor, all puffed up with . . . what?

You sound just like the Caltrans brass who crowed those very words in making the losing bet that the court would not stop the work that Caltrans started before the judge had even heard the case.

Are you Caltrans brass, or is your brass your very own brand?

Ok new idea. We take about 50 bucks, buy some paint, and write in real big letters at the bottom of the canyon:

AT LEAST YOU DONT LIVE IN DETROIT.

Someone looking down contemplating their fate may reconsider. It's cheap and wont ruin the view. Oh, and it can be toxin free, organic, locally made, odor-free paint too, so as to not upset the lizards or eco's.

I almost forgot, better make it glow in the dark.

I completely agree with you Sally. It's hard to believe this issue is even being debated. If one human life is saved because of these barriers, then the sacrifice--of $ and of the beautiful "view"--is well worth it.

human life is the most easily renewable resource on this planet.

"My eldest, Jon, killed himself in a crisis moment, at the age of 23, at a perfect suicide spot along Cupertino’s Highway 49 after his call for help wasn’t heard."

If more people expended some *real* interest in the others around them, then perhaps such a "call for help" would not have gone unheeded. On the other hand, I think that our society instills such self-judgement on us as individuals, that potentially suicidal persons ACTIVELY hide pain from others--likely, exacerbating whatever crisis is at hand!

And, while I certainly hope that *individuals* (notice, that I do not use the generic term, "lives") are allowed a chance to reconsider their circumstances, I oppose the idea of a suicide barrier on the grounds of individual responsibility to safeguard themselves. [Paradoxically, it either take a lot of energy to overcome the instinct for self-preservation, or a person has reached the limit of their power to fight the demons in their life (lacking the "will to go on").]

If there were an effort to change the current paradigm, to one where people feel more free to communicate whatever is bothering them, then I'm certain there would be not only less need for bridge barriers, but also the ridiculous conflicts about them.

Oh, and to dredge up what I've said before, when the arguments about the barrier are boiled down to "safety vs. aesthetics", then I expect safety to win.

Equus_posteriori and all,

What we Friends of the Bridge are attempting to do can be very challenging to folks who are stuck in the too-dominant polarized/polarizing paradigm that frames our choices in matters such as this as tightly-confining EITHER / OR propositions-- in your terms it gets "boiled down to 'safety vs. aesthetics" (where vs. means AGAINST or FOR).

We-- and we think most people-- are in favor of and working to implement a plan that BOTH improves safety AND preserves beauty.

A BOTH / AND solution can be achieved in this case if local leaders and Caltrans are willing.

We are hopeful that these public servants are willing to achieve a WIN / WIN resolution: higher safety railings, closed-circuit cameras and speakers, call-phones linked to qualified suicide-prevention counselors, improved officer training, making safe the area under the bridge, limiting near-bridge vehicle access-- at a fraction of the cost of fabricating and installing the tall fences that have been proposed.

Thank you for your consideration.

>>"I saw how these lawyers kept cherrypicking, citing the same few flawed and dated studies."<<

Every study has either explicitly or implicitly said we don't know if barriers work. The most recent was released a couple of months ago.

It's really sad what grieving people can talk themselves into to feel better.

@marcmcginnes

Believe me, I get that there can probably be a design compromise, that retains "the view" while providing a safety barrier.

I just think that, there should be Friends with less emphasis on "the Bridge". It's far easier to be interested in someone's crisis in the past tense, rather than learning to sense ill demeanor, and making efforts to be concerned proactively.

I see it as an "Ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" situation, with the prevention more focused on the stimulus of suicide, rather than the act itself. I offer apologies, if that's just too idealistic.

@ Equus-posteriori

I think that you are not being too idealistic in invoking the folk wisdom that an "Ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." More effective attention to and treatment of those at risk of suicide is needed, but alas, this requires a good deal of money, not to mention changes in our attitudes toward each other. It is very well to keep working to make needed changes in these realms.

But what we have going on at the Cold Spring Bridge is something different. Up until now, Caltrans has treated the issue of effective suicide prevention (as opposed to diversion) as a "sideshow" (the very term used), and it has kept speeding ahead-- in part for its own budget-justifying purposes-- to spend the $4 million that it has allocated to this project, even though a superior and less costly alternative has been presented to it.

Maybe I am too idealistic to believe that citizens have the right and the responsibility to require that those, like Caltrans, who act in our name, do so in a reasoned and fiscally responsible manner.