This is what the Aurora Bridge suicide prevention fence will probably look like:
Click to embiggen
The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) is working out a few final design issues and will present the proposal to the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board in January of February.
WSDOT has apparently come up with a design which will retain the view from the bridge. “As you’re driving along, the cables will become almost invisible,” says WSDOT spokesman Greg Phipps. “This is a custom design. We’re trying to balance the community issues and the historic issues.”
Phipps says construction on the barrier should be completed by the end of 2010.
This will not save a single life.
Awww….now that poor emo kid with the longboard will have to hang himself.
Are we taking bets on which bridge people will jump from now?
Don’t we have better things to spend money on right now?
That’s one attractive looking suicide barrier.
That’s one douchey looking old man with a longboard.
Wouldn’t it have been a lot cheaper to hook up the hotline phones to the department of go-ahead-and-kill-yourself?
But I forget, the incomming party of we-are-the-party-of-fiscal-responsibility has decided that the fiscally responsible thing to do is to spend as much money we don’t have as possible.
The Queen Anne Bridge is just around the corner.
Shouldn’t they have razor wire on top of the fence to really deter anyone from climbing over? A gulag style atmosphere is a small price to pay to forestall a few suicides each year.
You made me LOL at a suicide story by using the word “embiggen”
@David Wright:
I’m glad somebody is using that. It’s one of my favorites.
@Old Seattle Naysayers
Why, oh why, won’t you at least eat some crow when the suicide rate dips after this fence goes in? Just a little fucking crow. Am I asking too much?
Isn’t the I-5 bridge higher?
Elenchos: I loved that phrase! One of your best SLOG contributions ever. I will continue to use it whenever possible.
sorry to piss on the hater parade, but it looks good and will work to the extent it needs to.
What they should really do is place a sign on the bridge indicating the best place to jump, where the likelihood of death is greatest but where the probability of hitting a passing boat or a building underneath is lowest. That should serve all constituencies: those who wish to die, and those who don’t want a body plummeting down onto them from above. And it will save a lot of money.
ugh, all three designs are awful.
frankly, most of us fremonters think it’s a sham.
To people who think this won’t stop anyone – you sure have a lot of faith in the physical fitness of the average suicidal person.
If you ride a longboard….just jump all ready.
@15
You sure have a lot to say for someone who hasn’t spent five minutes learning about suicide. What else are you ignorant about? I’d like to hear your opinion.
@7
Razor wire seems like a bonus to someone that suicidal.
… to be paid for with a $5 million toll on attempted jumpers, and a $1 million toll on successful jumpers.
someone could hang themselves on the horizontal pickets, I vote for vertical.
These are exactly the kind of comments that egged on that kid in Florida. Suicide just isn’t funny. All of your attempts at being witty just blow. Is there some reason why people cannot discuss suicide like adults? Without resorting to this callous and infantile “just go kill yourself” mentality. Seriously, you don’t know why every single suicidal person is in that state. It is a horrific place to be in and you know what? Comments like the above actually DO tip people over the edge. Do you all have so little compassion for other humans that you think it is really hilarious when someone offs themselves?!? Fuck you retards!
They should commision Chihuly into doing something out of glass. Or the guy who did the Parabala (sp?) ouy of iron or stained glass.
No offense, but do enough people jump off the Aurora Bridge to justify the expense? Do so many people jump off that it isn’t news anymore?
@17 – whoo whee, hoss, hold the venom! I won’t go off on you with all I know, just to say that if you knew what I do know about suicide, you’d be sorry for writing what you did.
Now then, are you telling me that suicidal people, who come in all forms of physical fitness, are all going to be able to scale small bars with foot/grabholds six feet apart? A few marines might be able to do it, and a few desperate people who are in good shape can probably do it. But I’d bet it will stop most of the people who could just hop over the 3-foot high “barrier” that’s there now.
I think if they just made a 15 ft. tall razor wire electric fence, they would never be able to get over it. Have another low fence guarding so pedestrians and cyclists don’t accidentily bump into it. Make it low voltage so they don’t die, but strong enough so it would hurt along with the razor wire, and they would fall off without climbing 6ft high.
I guess they might fall into traffic though.
@23 suicidal people – while they might feel like there are no other options – are smart enough to use one of the OTHER 10,000 BRIDGES IN SEATTLE.
Don’t insult their intelligence.
if the urinal is broken, i’m gonna use the toilet.
@ 25, maybe, maybe not. That’s beside the point. (But I will thank you not to insult MY intelligence, as I know most of those bridges are nowhere near that high.)
Yeah, but you can *see* the other Suicide-Enabled bridges from the Aurora–the I-5 and the Queen Anne. Dive off either of those, and you will die.
When it’s your brother or husband who gets blocked from jumping, whether you know about it or not, that barrier will, in point of fact, have helped someone. And not just your brother or husband. Really, do you people not get how many suicides are impulsive one-off kinds of things where the means yield the ends?
I agree with @24. Gramps kept the hosses in the paddock with a good ol’ fashioned shockin fence. That should be good enough for the wannbe jumpers.
You do realize that suicidal is a mental state usually due to a chemical state in the brain (depression), right? Honestly, the average suicidal person isn’t in a mental state where they should be consenting to committing suicide.
I can’t understand the sheer callousness of everyone in Seattle about this damn bridge and the people committing suicide from it, when they’re so prone to get riled up about ads on buses, mormons, words that might offend someone, Republicans and cars.
Look, they’ve put up the barriers before on other suicide bridges, and it’s drove down suicides. People don’t go to other bridges. They want to jump from that bridge because of its view and a 100 other factors other bridges don’t have. They don’t shoot themselves or overdose on pills because once again, they want the death only a bridge jump brings. More importantly, anyone who survives a bridge jump doesn’t reattempt it ever again (correct me if wrong, but people who fail suicide by pills, CO2 or guns usually repeat till success). So if we block it, it’s doubtful people will try again.
Who gives a shit about a small railing on the bridge? I thought no one at the Stranger drove a car, or went over to uncool districts like Fremont? :p
Roughly 30,000 Americans kill themselves each year, which accounts for about 1% of annual deaths in the US.
Of those 30,000, more than 50% end their lives via the deadly use of firearms (globally, the most popular method is hanging).
Bridge jumping as a method of suicide has gotten more press lately, and it’s certainly one of the most dramatic ways someone can end their lives… but it accounts for a tiny percentage of actual suicides, and in the end, the result is the same.
I’m not suggesting that this isn’t unfortunate, or preventable – but if you’re genuinely interested in limiting the *number* of deaths by suicide, rather than just the ones that make the news, it could be argued that better gun control rather than higher fences are the answer.
Suggesting that “public” suicides somehow count for more than all the private ones is a mistake in my opinion. Focusing on the drama might be more emotionally fulfilling, but it misses the point.
Finally, a couple of folks have commented on how the “impulsive” nature of some suicides demands that we make it as difficult as possible to off yourself at every turn. I would humbly suggest that such a suicide-proof world would render us utterly immobile, assuming we could even afford it. More difficult solutions are needed – ones that make it easier to want to stay alive, for instance.
stop making good tv shows, kristin
@ 31, I don’t think simple suicide prevention is the only issue here. People have been leaping from the Aurora Bridge for more than 70 years, but probably due to all the development below, they’ve become a nuisance. I don’t mean that in a dismissive sense of the word – I’m very sympathetic to the plight of the suicidally depressed – but in the sense that these suicides are now doing damage far beyond ending their own lives. I’m surprised no one has landed on an occupied car in the Adobe lot yet. It’s a matter of time before that happens.
There is something just so depressing about such barriers. It makes me wonder if it won’t put more thoughts into other peoples minds.
I had a friend who ended up jumping from a different place. I’ve always told myself it was quick.
Since they’re messing up the historic look of the bridge, are they going to make the damn sidewalk wider too?
I bet you the day after they finish putting the barriers up we get a 8.5 that flattens the viaduct and makes the bridge unsafe for crossing anyway.
I am still waiting to hear what the annual body count is for jumping off the Aurora Bridge. I think the argument, “If it saves just one life” is bogus. How do we know that this barrier wil stop anyone from killing themselves? All it does it take away one option. There are plenty of other ways to die. If jumping off something tall is your cup of tea there are many tall buildings whose roofs remain unguarded.
I personally don’t fear death, but fear pain. The idea of jumping off a bridge and not dieing in a split second sounds like it’s going to hurt. That is no way to leave this life.
Diving board.
@37,
On average, the death toll is less than one person a year.
Just for the record, I have a friend who has a friend who is still alive after jumping three different times…obviously did not hit the pavement.
@ 39, I’ve read 3-4 is the average.
Again, it isn’t just about saving lives.
@41,
We’ve had more jumpers lately. The average is still less than one a year.
What kind of society are we contributing to when we think it’s cool to be so grossly callous?
When someone chooses the dramatic end to their misery it affects hundreds of people.
Parents, siblings, friends. Every person who knows someone who suicided is now more likely to succeed at it themselves. The inability to see the big picture affects all of us. Imagine the people who live and work below the bridge. Imagine the teenagers who saw their young friend just the night before. Imagine the police who thought the distraught guy was getting off the edge only to tumble over…. We have a responsibility to do what we can.
I had a guest in town this weekend who said “This would be a great view except for the railing here.” I had to tell her it was about to get much worse. I feel neutral about the fence now — if it saves the residents below from having to see corpses on the street, than maybe it’s worth it.
Such a bad idea.
This is such an awesome idea.
And won’t it be great when the number of suicides in Seattle decreases?
Oh, wait, they won’t.
Hmm … in that case it’s a STUPID FUCKING IDEA!
Now, let’s ban parking within five blocks of The Stranger’s offices – that would do a lot more good.
Keshmeshi, I don’t know what math you’re using, but the Stranger reports 200 or jumps as of 2000. So, in the first 68 years of the Aurora bridge, that’s an average of 2.94 a year. My guess is that the recent uptick makes it more than 3.
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Conte…
What’s your source?
Keshmeshi, if the Stranger isn’t a good enough (or recent enough) source, the American Journal of Psychiatry reported 230 suicides for the 76 years it’s been open, so my hunch was right. That doesn’t include unsuccessful attempts; did you know that 31% of those who jump into the lake survive?
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/pdf_…
Another interesting question is whether putting the phones on the bridge decreased the number of suicides.
If you don’t think this will save lives, sorry, but you’re wrong. The research that has been done on this issue is clear: suicide barriers on bridges DO save lives. Jumping suicides are almost always impulsive, spur-of-the-moment things, and anything that makes it harder to jump makes it more likely that the impulse to kill oneself will pass before the person succeeds in ending their life. Generally they will NOT simply find another way to kill themselves, because they are not thinking rationally when they are thinking about killing themselves. For more on this subject read http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/magazi…