Come for the view, stay for the fall.
So the geniuses in San Francisco have decided that the solution to the 30-plus suicides a year from the Golden Gate Bridge is a giant net. Not just any net, either - a $50 million plastic-coated steel boondoggle, and that price tag is just for parts and installation. The best estimate is that the net, which will hang 20 feet below the deck of the bridge and extend out 20 feet to either side, will cost an additional $78,000 a year to maintain (no word on whether that cost includes the labor and equipment involved in fishing jumpers out of the net, or if that’s extra).
Some questions occur to me.
I have no idea what the projected lifespan of the net is. The bridge itself has stood for 70 years, so assuming that the net has a similar longevity, and the net is 100% effective, taking fatalities from 30 a year to zero, this has the potential to save 2100 people from themselves. At a cost of $55,460,000, or $26,409.52 per life saved. Seems like a bargain when you break it down that way, when you consider that what this really amounts to is a PR campaign. Let’s say that the net really does work, in the keeps-you-from-hitting-the-water sense. It doesn’t really address the issue of why you wanted to jump in the first place, and if we’re talking about planned suicides, as opposed to “what the hell, I’m here, so I might as well kill myself” impulse jumpers, won’t people just go someplace else? Maybe San Francisco would be better off just offering $25 grand in cash to those willing to agree to leave their hearts (and other body parts) elsewhere…
