Plans to build a suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge are moving forward. This week a committee of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission gave the nod to a proposal to use $5 million in federal funding to complete design of the proposed barrier.
The MTC is the transportation planning, coordinating and financing agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.
The full commission is expected to sign off on the plans at its meeting later this month. Then the Golden Gate Bridge Board of Directors is expected to accept the money at its meeting Aug. 13.
"It's a landmark moment," said Mary Currie, bridge district spokeswoman. "We have the money for the final design."
She said it will take 18 months to complete the design and another 24 months to build the $45 million stainless steel nets on either side of the bridge.
Funding for the barriers' construction, however, has yet to be identified, she said. Officials have said toll revenues will not be used to pay for the nets.
Approval for the barrier in February came after years of advocacy from victims' families and mental health groups, trying to end the bridge's history as a magnet for suicides. More than 1,300 people have leapt to their deaths from the span since it opened in 1937. Thirty-one people did so in 2009.
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