The Golden Gate’s $400 Million Suicide Safety Net Nears Completion – IOTW Report

The Golden Gate’s $400 Million Suicide Safety Net Nears Completion

Monday, 20 November 2023, 15:00 Dr. Tar Uncategorized 48

People

The Golden Gate Bridge’s website says on average 30 people or more die from suicide on the bridge each year.

The Golden Gate Bridge is almost finished adding safety nets. The goal of the project – which began in 2018 – is to help prevent suicides from occurring.

According to a page on the bridge’s website, the The Suicide Deterrent System, also known as the Safety Net, will be placed 20 feet below the sidewalk, extending 20 feet out from the bridge. More

Some think the $400 million would have been better spent on mental health care instead. Here

48 Comments on The Golden Gate’s $400 Million Suicide Safety Net Nears Completion

  4. Wait. I need to check an amortization schedule and run some numbers. Send me a check and I’ll give you a full report on the cost/benefit analysis of this boondoggle.

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  6. People who would spend $400 million on a net under a bridge are badly in need of mental health intervention as are the voters who put them in office. The first thing that comes to mind is, couldn’t the dead-enders jump out of the net and continue their journey? Are there no other bridges, high buildings, antennas, or cliffs around San Francisco? Or just go downtown and get some fentanyl. Or, you could run your city in such a way that its denizens don’t want to kill themselves.

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  15. Niagara Falls is a magnet for suicides, Kathy Hochul will have to rig something up After all – “if it saves just one life” that’s a good enough reason to waste millions of tax dollars.

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  16. Ok, first off, there IS no mental health system now. All they do is celebrate mental illness and call the SANE people crazy if they don’t. See Isiah 5:20 for further details.

    Second, if I’ve learned nothing else about suicide, it’s that if someone is absolutely determined to devil themselves, they WILL. It ain’t hard. You aren’t going to catch the suicides here, you’re going to catch the suicide GESTURES. Perhaps not a bad thing as it is a cry for help, but there’s no help coming (see above). Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, but understand there’s no infrastructure left to help if you manage to turn someone around, except maybe church; and you’d better be SURE your pastor is up to the task or you’ll just end up making God look bad too.

    But those who HAVE somehow survived a bridge jump claim they had INSTANT regret as soon as they committed. Maybe save them? But what about after they hit the net?

    “The website adds that jumping onto the net will result in significant bruises, sprains and possibly broken bones.”

    …great. THEY now have the original problem, PLUS broken bones, PLUS medical bills AND legal expenses, e.g. “We want the message to be that it’s going to hurt, and also jumping off the bridge is illegal,”, and also, some lucky person (presumably on the understaffed SFFD) gets to go fish the injured and possibly violent mental person out of the net, with…what? Harness? High angle rescue? Stokes basket and a helicopter? Yaya, fun times for all.

    …seems like, absent a functional mental health system or any sort of civilizing moral code (SF, after all), that if you’re going to make an effort, maybe keep people off the bridge in the first place and jump immediately on anyone who stops like on the Ponchetrain Causeway.

    But this would require a functional police department with a City government that has their back, so never mind…

    …no good answers here, but this is kind of a deflection of suicide rather than a prevention of suicide.

    “Since the project started and nets have been added the average number of suicides on the bridge has decreased. In 2022, there were 22 confirmed suicides. Through October of this year, there have been 13.”

    …even if this is an apples-to-apples comparison, which is impossible to prove, does it mean that, since you fished a couple out of the nets that they went forth and jumped no more? Do you consider it a win that you frustrated THIS effort if they jump in front of a bus immediately after because, hey, it wasn’t on the bridge? Is it like saying someone died at the hospital only because no MD could make it official until you bucked the shattered corpse to the ED?

    …this just seems like some sort of feel-good boondoggle with a healthy markup for everyone in on the construction grift. Don’t forget the Big Guy’s 10%, and you’ll be fine.

    …the people your politics drove to suicide?

    Not so much.

    But YOU, Democrat Politician, will come out of it GREAT…

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  18. The article did go on and state that suicides have been declining in recent years on the bridge. Either the sections of the net that were installed earlier have been working or more suicidal people have found other bridges to leap from in San Francisco.

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  19. On October 10, 2008, the Golden Gate Bridge and Transportation District Board of Directors voted 15 to 1 for the preferred option of installing a plastic-covered stainless steel net below the bridge as a suicide deterrent. The netting barrier was initially estimated to cost $40–50 million to complete.

    Uh-Oh

    Funding for building this barrier was unanimously approved by the Golden Gate Bridge Board of Directors on June 27, 2014. The MTC approved to contribute $27 million of the $76-million overall cost for the project

    Whoops

    stainless-steel netting and structural pieces began offsite in May 2017 after years of debate and installation of the netting on-site began in August 2018. The netting was scheduled to be complete in 2021 at a projected cost of $211 million.

    That’s a big jump.

    District officials attributed the delay to the original lead contractor, Shimmick Construction, having underbid the project, and to its 2017 acquisition by AECOM. The suicide net construction is now estimated to cost a total of $400M to complete

    8 to 10 times the original cost? Only in government work.

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  20. Dr. Tar
    MONDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 2023, 16:55 AT 4:55 PM
    “The article did go on and state that suicides have been declining in recent years on the bridge.”

    …I mentioned that at the end of my rant. 22 to 13 might mean a lot of things, but it might also be the “nobody (legally) dies at Disneyland” sort of actuarial dodge where they simply defer the actual declaration of death to somewhere OTHER than the bridge, so they can crow about a pretended “improvement” to try to justify their grift.

    But it could just be our times. Maybe the kids are too weak and doped to even be ambitious enough to l
    climb a bridge to jump off. Maybe past year’s statistics were padded by a suicide pact. Maybe the Fentayl, the Jab, or both got ’em before the bridge did. Maybe a lot of things, but it’s not like there’s an expected number of suicides any given year, so I’m not sure a papered change of 9 shown by a politial entity
    well known for it’s lying really means anything at all.

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  21. Dr Tar –
    OD’ing and trying to make a big a splash iz not mutually exclusive!
    Better spot Narcan every hundred feet on that net!

    … so much for Thinning the Herd!

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  23. Buy some fentanyl off the streets, and you can end it faster, and less trouble for all involved. That multi-million dollar safety net is anything but a safety net. Someone will jump out in front of a car on the bridge instead of jumping off it. How ya gonna solve that problem?

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  25. @Steve M: Just over four years. Construction commenced on January 5, 1933 and the Bridge was open to vehicular traffic on May 29, 1937. Cost: $35 million dollars in the 1930’s, approximately $1.5 billion in year 2016 dollars.

    per Google

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  28. …I put this up periodically when it seems appropriate. or there seems to be a bit too much Nerfing going on.

    Its time.

    …Stupid vs. Smart was in rough balance for centuries because, even though there’s a LOT more Stupid than there is Smart, stupid tended to die quicker and more frequently as a result of being stupid, but also bred quicker because stupid doesn’t consider consequences or responsibilities. Dying more also kept Stupid from overwhelming Smart by sheer numbers.

    Then Smart did something really Stupid.

    Smart started looking at how and why Stupid was dying, and started moving to address those causes. The Great Nerfing started where cars were rounded on the outside for Stupid pedestrian safety and given a blimp on the inside for Stupid driver safety, machinery with obvious hazards were supplied with guards and automatic cutoffs so it would stop if Stupid reached into it, GFCIs were invented in case Stupid wanted toast in the bathtub, handrails were put on EVERYTHING so Stupid wouldn’t fall when they were dancing to their headphones on the stairs, guns were given safeties to make it less likely Stupid would shoot their peckers off when they shoved it down their pants, rat poisons and battery acids were given pictogram warnings against drinking and eating them, food was delivered by planeloads to Stupid to protect them from stupid agricultural policies, even bullets were packaged with cautions against lead poisoning…the list is endless.

    Smart then started being lawyers for Stupid so every time Stupid was injured doing something stupid, Smart would not only make it profitable for them so they could make MORE Stupid, but ALSO forced other Smart to make it harder for Stupid to hurt themselves stupidly in the first place and to force Smart to allow importation of Stupid from Stupid lands into Smart ones, then Smart developed medical and surgical techniques to save Stupid when Stupid stupidly injured itself, even gave Stupid Viagra and artificial insemination so even MORE Stupid was possible.

    And as the world got stupider, Smart pulled back on having children, considering how the world was becoming a place they didn’t want to have children IN because of all the Stupid, and also that they were working overtime to protect Stupid and so were too tired to talk other Smart into sex later, so it became easier just to have sex with Stupid. Genetics always favors Stupid as a dominant because that’s how the system was originally set up, so Smart+Stupid=Stupid in all but rare cases when Stupid had a recessive Smart gene as well.

    Meanwhile, deliberate attempts were going on worldwide, most notably in Islam, to use inbreeding to produce a VERY Stupid and violent population that could be easy to rule, so Stupid was now being manufactured in job lots as a tool to beat Smart down with endless cannon fodder.

    All of this in modern times, after 100 years of Nerfing, decades of modern medicine, and centuries of of inbreeding finally produced a tipping point of people stupid enough to vote Democrat, so here we are, trying to push the floodgates of civilization closed yet one more time against the howling seas of the violent and the ignorant that are too stupid to even realize that our destruction will bring theirs as well. Ask Zimbabwe, Haiti, South Africa, and St. Louis how that works. But even as we push against that sea, Democrats stand at the wall spraying fire houses into it to make it even BIGGER, on the mistaken assumption that they are Posideon and will rule that sea once it overwhelms US.

    And it will.

    We may be able to stave the flood tide off for one more generation, but as we also continue to preserve and augment it, it WILL, eventually, but as certainly as the tides will rise, destroy us by sheer weight of numbers. Absent a war or an act of God to sharply reduce their numbers…it WILL happen.

    Then they will die back to Stone Age levels without Smart to feed them, bind their wounds, or bury their bodies.

    This is the weapon the Democrats wield.

    Stupid.

    And yet we continue to preserve the very Stupid in spite of themselves.

    …and as we slave to provide them the leisure to vote themselves more of our money and devise new ways to help them survive the consequences of their bad decisions long enough to vote the rest of us into Communist slavery, it sometimes makes you wonder whether it isn’t the SMART who are stupid since they get ALL the work and Stupid gets ALL the benefit…

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  31. Because suicide is bad for tourism, yet the drug addled and mentally ill own the streets in this town. I guess they decided they could fix one with a net while the other they can’t touch because of the politically correct.

    Comes off the page like the lyrics of a sarcastic protest song.

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  32. “Because suicide is bad for tourism”

    I dunno Doc Tar. My earliest memory of peeps jumping off the bridge are 1974. Rumor has it part of the Japanese SF tours are looking thru binoculars waiting for some one to jump.

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  33. Serious suiciders won’t go there if they don’t expect their death plans to work out because of the net.

    They’ll just go to another bridge, say the Oakland Bay Bridge, or several other around SF. Or find other methods of self-destruction, maybe not as spectacular as diving off the GG Bridge.

    The net will become unused. I fail to see the point of spending millions on net that is supposed to catch suiciders that won’t even show up.

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  34. “They’ll just go to another bridge, say the Oakland Bay Bridge”

    The rest of the bridges are pretty low. It would be like diving into your swimming pool. To your point they would find another way. My take is the reduction in suicides is a direct reflection on these animals are pretty damn happy being able to shit where ever the want to. Thanks Mayor Breed.

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  35. Save a drug addict from himself, at whatever cost, and you can perpetuate his endless cycle of raping the tax-payer of their hard-earned money.

    In the meantime….patriotic Americans with children that have the need for life saving epinephrine have to pay ridiculous prices.

    What The Hell Is Wrong With This Country?

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  36. jellybean
    MONDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 2023, 21:44 AT 9:44 PM

    “In the meantime….patriotic Americans with children that have the need for life saving epinephrine have to pay ridiculous prices.”

    …Epinephrine is in a weird place legally as compared to Narcan, and I’m not really sure why. Like Narcan, Epinephrine can temporarily reverse a problem, in this case anaphylaxis, that prevents a person from breathing. This uses an auto-injection metered dose syringe (EpiPen) intramuscular, usually in the thigh, and the nature of the syringe basically obviates the risk of applying wrong or multiple doses. Like Narcan, it is NOT definitive care, just treating the immediate problem but still requiring emergency transport to the nearest medical facility to treat the underlying condition and ensure no heart problems arise.

    Where they diverge legally is likely the route of administration, where most publicly available Narcan is in a nasal form while you do, however simply, have to inject Epinephrine. What this comes down to is that an unlicensed Good Samaritan or First Responder, at least in Ohio where I am, is legally permitted and given wide civil immunity for emergency application of naloxone (Narcan) to restore spontaneous respiration, whereas there is NO legal permissive AT ALL for the same person to administer Epinephrine even in an emergent situation, even one prescribed to the patient in question, without significant criminal and civil risk.

    ….except…

    …a small portion of the law supplies a provision that an unlicensed or insufficiently licensed responder can ASSIST a person in injecting THEMSELVES. This can include malarkey like holding the needle in the person’s limp hand enclosed around by yours, putting the EpiPen to thigh while holding it in their hand, and pressing the injector release spring with THEIR thumb covered by YOURS.

    It’s stupid, but that’s how law often is.

    I understand they don’t want folks running around injecting things willy-nilly into every unknown down that may or may not be having an allergic reaction, and that there ARE significant health risks to even the proper application of epinephrine, BUT if it’s the person’s own and they have it BECAUSE of this risk, it seems a better option if they are strangling in their own swelling with a shrug, saying “Whelp, I couldn’t get air into them and they died, but at least the law was followed”.

    Bullocks.

    I don’t see why epinephrine can’t occupy the same legal ground as Narcan in that a basic training to the effect of “this is NOT definitive care and a person so treated needs to go to a hospital NOW even if they immediately feel better” wouldn’t suffice, especially if they brought their own injector to the party to begin with. But that would step on medical cartel toes and so ain’t gonna happen.

    …but anaphylaxis isn’t politically sexy like drug abuse is, and neither is diabetes, which is why you can get free DRUG needles but not free INSULIN needles. And, unless you can think of a way Democrats can make political hay out of allergies and diabetes, those so afflicted will remain forever on their own.

    Maybe not a bad thing, if you think about it.

    Look where drug abuse is at NOW after decades of Democrat “help”…

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  39. Brad
    MONDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 2023, 22:57 AT 10:57 PM

    You know me by now, I just don’t fit in 140 characters.

    Never have and never will.

    If it’s TL:DNR, so be it.

    It will be gone and forgotten tomorrow anyway.

    At least I got to say all that I felt needed said today.

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  42. They used to jump off of the Solomons Bridge, but a few of them survived. They put up some chainlink so you couldn’t land on a house, or toss beer bottles on faggots who blared Jimmy Buffsit on their boomboxes.

    I think people who love Jimmy and who blare Jimmy’s shit should be buffeted by beer bottles, piss, and suicides.

    But that is just me.

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  44. @Erik … scumbag ~ they’re still jumping off the Solomons Bridge
    https://thebaynet.com/boater-locates-man-that-jumped-off-thomas-johnson-bridge/
    https://forums.somd.com/threads/bridge-jumper.397416/
    … & the state just said ‘don’t think so’ for a net
    (apologies, can’t find a link … it was in last weeks paper … just not posted … I guess)

    the reason for the Solomons bridge being 104′ high was that the Navy wanted to ‘float their boats’ under it … so the State acquiesced & built it high enough for a fleet ship to pass under it to the naval station up-river
    as soon as the bridge was built the Navy decided to close the station to fleet ships
    thank you so very much Steny Hoyer (D) & Ben Cardin (D) … truth is, southern MD votes consistently republican & they get the shaft, every time, from the D’rats in congress & the state.

    this bridge is a huge POS & needs massive repairs/replacement, but it is little priority to the D’rat state.

    so much for D’rats caring about their ‘constituents’

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  45. @SNS ~ it’s a simple matter of politics … who do the politicians want to prioritize? the taxpayers? or the ‘prol’ scumbags’?
    which one gets them more power? … the mob, or the law-abiding?

    yes, they give freely to the ‘mob’ the wealth of the taxpayers. the dregs get free access to non-invasive, life-saving procedures, but they make it more difficult for those that actually, willingly support the government by their meager profit & labor while being required to go through economical & physical hardship to receive (basically) the same life-saving treatment

    always, always follow the money … this governing scum have all sold their souls … all of them! … whether it be to China or Big Pharma, they’re nothing but Whores

    they are to be loathed, not deserving of any wealth, whatsoever. of The People … they are not worthy of our support

    … Thank you, Sir. may I have another?

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  46. Let’s see if I understand this situation. Instead of almost certain death by falling into force of the water below, the jumper will fall twenty feet into the force of steel netting. Twenty feet is a long way to fall. If you fell from a 20 foot ladder it can kill you or goof up your body in fairly serious ways. So, does CA want to put these poor souls on disability for the rest of their lives in addition to not treating their mental illness?

    Not trying to be clever or funny here. Is this a case of unintended consequences?

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  47. AbigailAdams TUESDAY, 21 NOVEMBER 2023, 9:09 AT 9:09 AM

    …we have sailors here (Geoff comes to mind) that have aircraft carrier experience and those have netting around them, so perhaps one of them can describe what they’ve seen in detail.

    But that’s what I mentioned above. This is likely to damage a person physically who is already damaged mentally, which is certainly not going to improve their outlook on life; and then, someone has to go get them OUT of the net, so you’re going to have to rescue someone who may be entangled from a not very stable surface while they are most likely fighting you, or even if not it will certainly be an interesting place to do cspine immobilization and splinting.

    Is it worth it? Literally, God only knows. Some jumpers who survive do report instant regret after jumping, so I suppose the second chance may help them. My personal position is always error on the side of life, so from that standpoint something is better than nothing. And this guy would seem to agree.
    https://www.psycom.net/kevin-hines-survived-golden-gate-bridge-suicide

    Not the same thing, but we have bird nets in our plant as birds are quite messy.

    The entangled bird is never alive.

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