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It’s the 75th birthday of the Golden Gate Bridge
and 75 years of suicides from the bridge as well Join Us to remember the 1,558 lives lost during this time, on May 27 Read More
The California Highway Patrol
first asked the Bridge authorities to install safety fencing in 1939.   Read More

Welcome

The Bridge Rail Foundation has one simple goal - stop the suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge. The Foundation grows out of the direct experience with bridge suicides - our board includes individuals who have had family and friends jump from the bridge and experts in mental health, law and public affairs. We have come together to focus public attention on the bridge suicide problem, see that the public is fully informed of the issue and ensure that this ongoing tragedy is finally stopped.

Take a look at the information here - then join our effort - sign up for our newsletter, send us a note about how you might help or donate what you can. We are an all-volunteer effort - so anything you might be able to do will help. Thank you.

Journalism Awards for GGB Suicide Coverage

Bay Area universities have made significant contributions to the effort to stop suicides at the Golden Gate Bridge. Students from San Francisco State and UCSF have contributed important research efforts and USF has hosted a major conference of suicide prevention activists. UC Berkeley students have been most active, with contributions from students in History, Public Health, Public Policy and Journalism. And Berkeley's Engineering students have produced award winning designs, engineering calculations, cost estimates and published research on practical solutions to the iconic structure's suicide problem.

Now we add students from the University of North Carolina and Western Kentucky University to this list. In the summer of 2011, the national finals of the Hearst Journalism Awards were held. The first and second place multimedia awards went to Margaret Cheatham Williams from UNC Chapel Hill and Leslye Davis of Western Kentucky University. The Hearst awards provide annual recognition for outstanding work by student journalists from throughout the US. The program is conducted by the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communications and is fully funded by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. Their reports are below.

Join Us - May 27

It’s the 75th birthday of the Golden Gate Bridge-- and 75 years of suicides from the bridge as well. We will not forget the 1,558 lives lost during this time and will ensure others who join the Bridge celebration know of these deaths as well.

Please join us-- here is what we have planned:

Whose Shoes? at Crissy Field

Amphitheater at the far west end of Crissy Field
Near the Warming Hut
Presidio of San Francisco
May 27th, 11 AM to 5 PM

We will have a daylong display of shoes to commemorate lives lost to suicide at the Bridge. The shoes in our display represent people from every walk of life and will once again be anchored by a pair of WWI US Army boots to memorialize Harold Wobber, the Vet who was the first known jumper from the span.

Individual memorials with shoes of lost loved ones donated by surviving families will be included as well.

Congress is considering a new Transportation Bill this year. We believe this legislation should include funds for nets and railings along suicide prone bridges.

This approach can resolve the Golden Gate problem and many others. You can help, here’s how:

The display will also feature chalk outlines of shoes, to remember the many lost to suicide whose bodies were never recovered; likewise, still others whose suicide was never recorded or recognized.

Read More.

Video Links

Kevin Hines introduces his story

Dayna Whitmer on a death in her family

Anne Fleming MD on what the science tells us

Ken Holmes on the demographics of Golden Gate suicides

What you might see on the Bridge

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