Advocates say Alex Fraser Bridge needs a suicide barrier solution
Global News
The province says the engineering of the bridge would make the installation of a barrier unsafe, but police and crisis advocates say it's a challenge worth overcoming.
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Police and the head of one of B.C.’s key crisis centres say they want to see the province get creative and find a way to install suicide barriers on the Alex Fraser Bridge.
Completed in 1986, the cable-stayed span connecting Delta with Richmond and New Westminster is nearly a kilometre long and 154 metres high.
It’s also all too often the scene of crisis interventions. Between 2020 and 2022, Delta police have responded to 48 crisis or suicide attempt calls, and say at least six people have taken their lives from the span.
In January of this year, police were forced to condemn angry commuters who honked, yelled and harassed officers trying to de-escalate a situation with a person in crisis, prompting the bridge to be shut down for hours.
Delta police have been advocating for the installation of barriers on the bridge since 2016, but Chief Neil Dubord said they’ve been told that engineers don’t believe it would be safe.
“They’re afraid any additional weight may cause some engineering problems,” he said.
“We are frustrated to a certain extent — we understand the engineering requirements the bridge has and the difficulty they have in being able to put up barriers here. Unfortunately, it’s our officers who are responding to these crisis calls, and people are losing their lives because they’re jumping.”
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