Will San Francisco break the fall of the Golden Gate Bridge jumpers?

At moments, it glows like a pathway to heaven, floating almost dreamlike through the thick layer of fog that frequently blankets the city. Even on sunny days, the Golden Gate Bridge is a wonder, its graceful Art Deco towers gleaming a deep orange-red against the shimmering turquoise water of the San Francisco Bay. But when John Moylan looked at the bridge, he also saw a darker side to its majestic beauty. In the 27 years since he was first appointed to the 19-member board that oversees the Golden Gate, Moylan had also come to see the tragedy of the bridge. It came in the form of countless stories he’d heard from grieving families whose loved ones had leapt to their deaths from the iconic span. Moylan didn’t blame the bridge. But he did understand the anguish. He had lost a grandnephew to suicide. And the memory of that pain alone had convinced him that if something could be done to save lives, it should be done. So as the numbers of the dead ticked higher and higher—a record 46 suicides in 2013 alone—Moylan pursued the often lonely fight of trying to convince his colleagues and the public of the need for a suicide barrier on the bridge. He first raised the issue three decades ago during his early days on the board in the late 1980s, encountering strong opposition from many of his colleagues and even the public. Some said a barrier wouldn’t stop those hell bent on dying. Others complained it would undermine the beautiful simplicity of the bridge. That didn’t stop Moylan, who repeatedly raised the idea of barrier over the years. ‘Suicide is everyone’s problem, and we have to do something about it,’ Moylan said at a board meeting last November. ‘My family has been touched by it, and I’ll tell you what, it tears a family apart,’ according to Yahoo News.