Spanning 700 feet, standing 1,200 feet high, and sitting as green as the California oaks growing beneath it, the Cold Spring Canyon Bridge is an architectural sight to behold.
It’s recognized as California’s longest steel arch bridge and is considered a Santa Barbara County and State Scenic Highway landmark.
But along with these accolades comes a much darker notoriety: Since its construction in 1964, almost 50 people have committed suicide by jumping off the bridge, according to Sheriff’s Department records. Six of those deaths occurred in 2009.
To reduce the number of suicides at the bridge—and improve the safety of law enforcement officials responding to emergency calls—the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has proposed building an 8-foot-high suicide barrier along the bridge’s railings.
A barrier will greatly improve the public’s safety and decrease the amount of risks taken by emergency responders, said Cmdr. Dominick Palera of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department.
[image-4]To better illustrate his point, Palera recalled an incident several years ago that was caught on a dashboard recorder: A female officer attempted to rescue a man on the bridge by leaning over to grab him, but the differences in weight caused her to lose her footing and slide up onto the railing.
“If it weren’t for [other officers] present, we could have had two people die that day,” Palera said.
For more than five years, officials from Caltrans, the Sheriff’s Department, and the California Highway Patrol have been working with suicide prevention specialists, engineers, and other members of the community to design an effective barrier. And now that goal could be realized.
In a recent interview with the Sun, Caltrans representative Colin Jones said the department plans to open the bidding process on Feb. 24, with the intention to begin construction by April.
“We hope to get a lot of local contractors interested in the project,” Jones said. “We want to create jobs and build a barrier that will save lives.”
However, an ongoing lawsuit filed against Caltrans by a citizens group called Friends of the Cold Spring Canyon Bridge is threatening to scrap the entire project.
“If we’re successful, the project will be stopped in its tracks,” said Marc Chytilo, the lawyer representing Friends of the Bridge. “Our plan is to expedite the litigation and have the project stopped before any substantive work can be done.”
In a petition filed in California Superior Court, Friends of the Bridge alleges Caltrans failed to follow guidelines under the California Environmental Quality Act when developing the project’s Environmental Impact Report. Additionally, the group claims Caltrans failed to include appropriate mitigation measures in its draft EIR and didn’t allow sufficient opportunities for the public to review the project.
[image-3] “Caltrans admitted in the EIR the barrier would create significant negative impacts to the esthetics of the bridge and surrounding area,” Chytilo said, adding that his clients believe Caltrans isn’t putting forth enough alternative options to the barrier or properly addressing mitigations.
“We’re not saying that the bridge isn’t a place where [suicides] happen,” he said. “We’re just saying we believe there are some substantial alternatives that were ignored in the planning process.”
Chytilo said one of those options is an intervention program, such as placing call boxes on the bridge that connect to a national suicide hotline.
If someone really wants to commit suicide, he said, an 8-foot barrier isn’t going to stop the attempt.
“If it’s not going to happen [at the bridge], it’s going to happen somewhere else,” Chytilo reasoned.
And Friends of the Bridge isn’t the only party dissatisfied with the Caltrans proposal. During one of two public meetings held in 2008 to discuss the project, Gary Spielmann, former director of suicide prevention for the New York State Office of Mental Health, commented that a “human barrier,” such as a suicide hotline, is more likely to save lives than a physical barrier.
But in the EIR, Caltrans said, “It is well documented that physical barriers have been effective in helping to reduce suicides at bridges and buildings around the world.”
The report also cited research from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that found limiting access to lethal methods of self-harm is an effective way to prevent self-destructive behaviors, such as suicide, in certain individuals.
In addition to questioning the validity of the project’s EIR, Friends of the Bridge has filed a complaint with the federal government alleging fraudulent use of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money to pay for the barrier’s construction.
The group claims Caltrans asked the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments to find federal stimulus dollars for the project even though the California Transportation Commission questioned strongly whether the bridge was a legitimate transportation project.
Gregg Hart, a representative for the association, said the Cold Spring Canyon Bridge project is an ideal project for federal stimulus money because “it’s shovel ready.”
Originally, Hart explained, Caltrans and SBCAG applied for federal funds for the widening of U.S. Highway 101 because of the “threat that funding would be cut off by the state right in the middle of construction.”
But when it became apparent that the state’s budget was going to pass, Caltrans decided it needed to do something with the stimulus package money.
“Because of the ARRA deadlines, we had to move quickly. If we didn’t spend the money, it would no longer be available to us, so we were very careful to put forward projects that would be approved,” Hart said.
As a result, Caltrans and SBCAG opted to use the state funds set aside for the suicide barrier project to fund other projects, such as improvements made to the Hollister-Ellwood Bridge in Goleta.
“And every single decision was made in public meetings, and were made available to the public through proper notice,” Hart said.
Caltrans representative Jones substantiated Hart’s explanation for the transfer of funds and agreed that the decision-making process was “completely transparent.”
Contact News Editor Amy Asman at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 18-25, 2010.