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The CEE students' models were superimposed on a photo of the existing rail to demonstrate their effect on the landmark bridge, including (top to bottom) the existing rail, the split post rail, the modified pedestrian rail and the flowing arch portal.
NICK FAIN IMAGES
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CEE students develop conceptual designs for Golden Gate Bridge suicide barrier
Four CEE undergraduates got more than they bargained for when they signed up for a class in civil engineered systems last spring. Their experience ushered them into a much larger realm involving architecture, economics and public policy, not to mention Art Deco styling and the psychology of suicide.
For their team project in Professor Robert Bea’s CEE 180 class, the students developed three conceptual design alternatives for a suicide barrier for San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. Their concepts earned them first place in the class competition and got their paper accepted for publication in a major professional journal. Team member Doug Wahl (B.S.’05 CEE), who graduated last December, says the experience transformed his career goals.
“I’m more interested in risk assessment now and think about projects in terms of whole systems,” Wahl says. “It’s so important to not just do calculations but engineer within political, economic, social and cultural systems.”
The Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District voted last year to proceed with a two-year, $2 million study of a suicide barrier using non-district funds, with $1.6 already committed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Supporters, including the City and County of San Francisco, Marin County and the Psychiatric Foundation of Northern California, have already committed funds toward the remaining $400,000, which must come from local sources. At press time, private fundraising efforts were ongoing to raise a balance of $256,400.
Although not under formal consideration for the barrier, the students approached their designs using the district’s stringent criteria for aesthetics, cost, security and emergency response. Most important, the barrier would have to effectively prevent a person from jumping but not add undue stress, weight or maintenance requirements to the 4,200-foot-long span.
The district has considered a barrier eight times since the 1950s in an effort to prevent some of the 1,300 fatalities, about 20 per year, that have occurred since the bridge opened in 1937. Opponents argue that a barrier would be unsightly and prohibitively expensive (between $15 million and $25 million) and that public funds would be better spent on mental health programs. But psychiatrists as well as individuals who have survived suicide attempts believe that a simple barrier can deter jumpers. In fact, similar structures have effectively put a stop to suicide jumps off the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building.
Other team members include Danielle Hutchings (B.S.’05 CEE), Ryan Stauffer (B.S.’05 CEE), and CEE exchange student Robert Simpson of Durham University in Scotland. Their paper, “ Aesthetics, Death, and Landmark Structures,” will be published in an upcoming issue of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Journal of Architectural Engineering. |
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