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Aurora Bridge barrier delayed by heavy equipment
Not ready for the barrier: Aurora Bridge's sidewalk.
Residents who had anticipated construction of a barrier on the Aurora Bridge would begin in late March, one that might deter people from jumping from the historic structure, will have to until at least mid-May. The cause can be boiled down to an engineering term: weight distribution.
In early construction plans, WSDOT communications spokesperson Greg Phipps says installation would have involved a structural survey of the bridge by workers making use of a wheeled cart. The cart would rest upon the sidewalk, traveling its length. Extending from the cart would be a platform that would reach over the bridge’s outer railing. The platform’s outer edge would hold a ladder, one that descended to the outside of the lower deck. There, the ladder’s lower rungs would open onto another platform, upon which the workers could stand to x-ray the bridge’s structural elements as they stood facing the lower deck.
But the cart’s projected weight load, it was discovered, would have proven too heavy for the center of the sidewalk. Phipps says the contractor who won the $2.9-million bid, Massana Construction, Inc., is now working with a second company that will design a track system upon which the wheeled cart will sit. The track will allow for a more even distribution of weight toward the sidewalk’s edges.
But plans for the new track system must garner WSDOT approval, says Phipps, which could happen by the end of March. Both the buggy and track will then need to be built, a six-to-eight week process that will go to mid- to late May. At that point, workers can begin their structural survey. Fence installation should follow, occurring in late summer early fall. All of which means the barrier may not see completion until late 2010 or early 2011.
Calls for a barrier on the Aurora Bridge to deter suicides have been building for years. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the structure is the nation’s second most sought-out bridge for people who commit suicide by jumping, with more than 240 people having leapt to their deaths since its construction in 1931. A non-profit group called Seattle FRIENDS led the charge for the barrier, garnering support of legislators and community members.
“There’s a real issue of suicides on the bridge,” says Phipps, “and we want to make sure we can get it up as soon as possible.”
Comments
This is not about fixing the bridge, the bridge is O.K.
This is about protecting people from their own desire.
or maybe about protecting people from creating a permanent repair to “their own desire” while under the influence of depression, drugs, despair…all which are temporary situations that can be dealt with in a different manner…
Let me start off by saying I am not an engineer, but the increasing the height of the current hand rail seems logical no? What about those fences that curve over pedestrian walkways on so many bridges? I know there are many considerations that may not be apparent, but why should a survey cost 3 Million? It seems that all but the most determined, and agile of those intent to get over one of those inverted fences could manage to do it.
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