City Wants To Put Suicide Cage Around Burrard Bridge

[Prometheus]

Serious downer.

It looks like the city also wants to put a suicide cage around Granville Bridge too. And a suicide cage is eventually going to be put around Lions Gate Bridge.

City officials say they want to add suicide-prevention fencing to the city’s heritage Art Deco bridge when they undertake a $35-million renovation.


VANCOUVER -- On average, about once a year someone leaps to their death from Vancouver’s Burrard Bridge. Compared to other area bridges, it isn’t the favoured spot to publicly end one’s life; the adjacent Granville Bridge and the Lions Gate Bridge are more often chosen for suicides.

But now city officials say they want to add suicide-prevention fencing to the city’s heritage Art Deco bridge when they undertake a $35-million renovation.

The plan has drawn the ire of heritage buffs and the film industry, who complain the proposal was not included in open houses where the public was asked for comment. They argue the fencing will ruin the look of the bridge and that it will impact movie shoots and car commercials that use it as a backdrop.

It is a delicate matter to raise concerns about preserving the heritage and esthetic looks of a landmark city bridge when talking about how to prevent suicides from it, admits Anthony Norfolk, a member of Vancouver’s heritage commission.

“A lot of people are running for cover because they are afraid if they don’t support it they’ll be accused of not caring for human life,” said Norfolk, who voted against recommending the bridge rehabilitation project after seeing the latest drawings, including the fencing.

The city had no plans to put suicide fencing on the bridge until Dr. John Carsley, a medical health officer for the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, pointed out that a 2008 coroners’ inquest had recommended such structures on all major bridges. He’s been alarmed at the high number of bridge jumping deaths. According to the B.C. Coroners Service, since 2006 at least 102 people have died jumping off eight of the region’s most accessible bridges. That doesn’t account for those who survived, or suicides that were not witnessed.

At the top of the list is the Lions Gate Bridge, with 33 deaths; at the bottom is the relatively low Cambie Bridge, with two. Seven people used Burrard Bridge.

Carsley believes many of those deaths could be prevented by “removing the means,” or in other words, putting up a barrier. Such fencing has been shown to be very effective in stopping what he called “impulsive” suicides, he said. Stopping determined suicides such as by hanging, or drug or alcohol overdoses, B.C.’s top two methods, is much more difficult.

“What the data shows is that people who jump from bridges are quite different from other kinds of suicide attempts,” he said. “In general, if one is thwarted from jumping from a bridge, you don’t seek other means of killing yourself.”

Suicide fencing has already been added to the Second Narrows Bridge, and the province has agreed to add it to Lions Gate when it undertakes further renovations. Granville Bridge may get it when the city undertakes renovations later.

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/S...533/story.html

I would love to see this data. I seriously doubt it supports Carsley's interpretation that removing bridge jumping from a long list of impulsive ways to commit suicide (e.g. stepping in front of vehicular traffic or Skytrain or leaping from a condo balcony, etc., just use your imagination) will result in a net reduction in Metro Vancouver suicides.

Carsley is the same medical health officer who recommended that council block the Edgewater Casino development at BC Place.

[osirisboy]

Well for sure lions gate and Granville need them

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by osirisboy

Well for sure lions gate and Granville need them

Too bad that they can't do Lions Gate due to the wind loading. No surprises though, shitty bridge is shitty. Who knew?

If only it wasn't so pretty.

[Bcasey25raptor]

I'm opposed to this. I like walking on the bridges for the view, this detracts from it.

I don't think suicide by jumping off a bridge is that high to begin with.

[osirisboy]

I have seen suicide barriers that are below the bridge deck before (that would stick out and stop anyone from falling). I wonder if something like that could be considered.

33 in nine years on lions gate. I think that's a fair bit!

[logan5]

Bridge jumping seems to be pretty low on the list. Jumping in front of trains is relatively popular, so I guess if we need fences on bridges, we'll need barriers at Skytrain stations.

Wikipedia -

Methods[edit]
During the 1980s and 1990s, firearms (or explosives) and hanging were the first- and second-most frequent means of suicide among Canadian males, followed by poisoning, gases, and jumping, and collectively, nine-tenths of suicides were committed via these five methods; poisoning was responsible for forty per cent of female suicides, followed by hanging (20%), gases and firearms (10% each).[15] Analysis of coroners' reports has attributed overprescription practices, and deficiencies in patient screening and prevention by family physicians to recent Canadian suicide trends.[1][16]
A study of 20,851 suicides in Quebec from 1990 to 2005 found that hanging, strangulation and suffocation were the principal causes of death (males, age-adjusted rate of 15.6 per 100,000; females, 3.6), followed by poisoning (males: 5.7; females: 2.9).[17]
In 2009, 14 of 18 persons who jumped in front of oncoming subway trains in Toronto's mass transit system were killed by the direct impact, electrocution from the high voltage rail, or from entrapment underneath the cars.[18] Although 1,200 suicide attempts or deaths have occurred in the Toronto subway from 1954 to 2010, with a peak of 54 suicide incidents in 1984, the current rate represents four per cent of Toronto's annual suicides.[18] In 2010, the Toronto Transit Commission reported a total of 26 "suicide incidents" (attempts and deaths), and seven during the first five months of 2011.[19]

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by logan5

Bridge jumping seems to be pretty low on the list. Jumping in front of trains is relatively popular, so I guess if we need fences on bridges, we'll need barriers at Skytrain stations.

Ooh and then lets insist on some kind of cow catcher type fender on all transit vehicles. Then once people have a tougher time killing themselves with transit vehicles, maybe big rig trucks should have them, and then regular cars.

[VarBreStr18]

there are so many bridges in Vancouver, jumping off any of them also fatal. can you prevent them all? If one is desperate or depressed enough , one will do anything.Better to save the money into suicide prevention

[a very long weekend]

honestly, in the future pretty much every bridge will have these. the trick is that it has to be done well so as not to fuck up the aesthetics.

here's the golden gate bridge one, which i'm sure anyone would concede is a pretty well known bridge, from their website

[Canadian Mind]

So you jump onto the mesh, then you jump off the mesh?

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

So you jump onto the mesh, then you jump off the mesh?

From that height I'm sure you'd break your legs landing on the mesh, or at the very least both ankles.

[osirisboy]

When people see that they won't jump in the first place

[Infrequent Poster]

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

So you jump onto the mesh, then you jump off the mesh?

The suicide net, needs a suicide cage as well.

[VarBreStr18]

Originally Posted by osirisboy

When people see that they won't jump in the first place

IF they can make that decision at that desperate moment....

[retro_orange]

I believe this is just another reason in the long list of reasons we need to reinvest in our mental health system. Making it a less viable way of killing ones self will by no means deter the actual suicide or make it any less visible to the witnessing public. Theres plenty of other high spots in the dive off... perhaps a skyscraper...

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by retro_orange

I believe this is just another reason in the long list of reasons we need to reinvest in our mental health system. Making it a less viable way of killing ones self will by no means deter the actual suicide or make it any less visible to the witnessing public. Theres plenty of other high spots in the dive off... perhaps a skyscraper...

Plus if you look at the article that logan5 quoted from, you'll see that firearms, hanging, poisoning and gasses are pretty high on the list of ways both men and women commit suicide. But trying to do something to stop people from killing themselves that way isn't as 'easy' as creating a high fence and / or big ledge to block them from jumping off a bridge.

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Plus if you look at the article that logan5 quoted from, you'll see that firearms, hanging, poisoning and gasses are pretty high on the list of ways both men and women commit suicide. But trying to do something to stop people from killing themselves that way isn't as 'easy' as creating a high fence and / or big ledge to block them from jumping off a bridge.

More like it's not as visible to the average voter...This will not prevent a single suicide. If someone is suicidal enough to get on a bridge and jump they'll either just choose a bridge that doesn't have a net (we have quite a few in the region) or they'll find another way. In either case, we've failed them and a net is just a fake solution to a much bigger problem. But it makes it seem like those who propose the net actually care and are doing something...

[Xerx]

Originally Posted by Jebby

More like it's not as visible to the average voter...This will not prevent a single suicide. If someone is suicidal enough to get on a bridge and jump they'll either just choose a bridge that doesn't have a net (we have quite a few in the region) or they'll find another way. In either case, we've failed them and a net is just a fake solution to a much bigger problem. But it makes it seem like those who propose the net actually care and are doing something...

A couple studies seem to show that suicides are not displaced onto other locations though. A study done in Montreal showed that:

Little or no displacement to other jumping sites may occur after installation of a barrier at an iconic site such as Jacques-Cartier Bridge. A barrier’s design is important to its effectiveness and should be considered for new bridges with the potential to become symbolic suicide sites.

Similar results were found in a study done in Maine:

The number of suicides related to jumping from other structures in Augusta remained unchanged after installation of the fence, suggesting that suicidal individuals did not seek alternative sites.

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by Xerx

A couple studies seem to show that suicides are not displaced onto other locations though. A study done in Montreal showed that.

Similar results were found in a study done in Maine:

Whether suicide fences displace bridge jumpers to other bridges is not the issue. The scientific issue is whether the installation of suicide fences causes a decrease in a region's overall rate of suicide.

Neither study makes that causal claim in its scientific findings. Indeed, the Maine study discovered that "the decline in the suicide rate in Augusta after the installation of the safety fence was statistically insignificant..." and that the overall suicide rate in Maine did not decline at all:


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2610560/

If the installation of suicide fences has no effect on a region's overall suicide rate, then they fail to achieve any meaningful objective and succeed only in ruining the beauty and quality of experience of our bridges for the rest of the population.

[wrenegade]

If they have to install suicide prevention devices on heritage-valued bridges (Lions Gate & Burrard) then they absolutely must be the mesh style of the Golden Gate. Do you think that they would put up a 2nd narrows style fence on the Golden Gate? Never. The Lions Gate and Burrard bridges are just as iconic for Vancouver.