To reach a suicide prevention hotline, call 888-568-1112 or 800-273-TALK (8255), or visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
Long-awaited suicide prevention fencing should be in place on the Penobscot Narrows Bridge by this July, the Maine Department of Transportation announced on Thursday.
The department announced it had awarded a contract for the work after almost a year of delays related to testing of its design. More recently, the timeline was adjusted because of delays in getting materials.
When completed, the project will bring to a close more than a decade of efforts to install the barriers on the 135-foot-high bridge over the Penobscot River between Prospect and Verona Island.
At least a dozen people have jumped to their deaths from the bridge since it opened in 2006, and more jumped from the Waldo-Hancock bridge that preceded it.
To prevent those deaths, chain link fencing will be added to the existing rails at an angle designed to prevent people from climbing over it, design documents show.
A roughly $1.35 million contract to install the barriers was awarded this week to BMB Construction, based in Holden, according to Maine DOT. If the project is completed ahead of schedule, the department will offer the contractor $1,000 for each day before the deadline, up to $30,000.
Construction should start this spring and be finished in July, according to the department.
Suicide prevention advocates have pushed for such a barrier on the bridge for years, saying it would delay people in crisis from jumping and give them time to reconsider.
State lawmakers first approved the construction of the safety fences on the bridge in June 2023 and the department planned to start the project in spring of 2024. It was pushed back after officials determined their design needed additional testing to be sure that the fencing could withstand wind without being damaged or affecting the bridge.
Similar barriers were added to Augusta’s Memorial Bridge over the Kennebec River in 1983. A 2005 study found that no suicides were recorded there afterward, compared with 14 suicides in the 23 years before.
The Narrows bridge has had suicide hotline phones on both ends of the bridge for 10 years, but they were out of order at the times of at least two suicides.
