The headline reads like a piece of black comedy:
“Suicide barrier on [Toronto’s] Bloor Viaduct worked, but jumpers went elsewhere: study”
Really? You mean that investing $6 million in a view-obscuring fence designed to thwart people who want to snuff themselves didn’t actually prevent them from doing the deed somewhere else?
Colour me shocked. And while you’re at it, colour me annoyed as well.
So long as people cluster in large cities, there will inevitably be a sizable demographic of people who will want to kill themselves. Although the Bloor viaduct was a convenient place to do it, the “state-of-the-art” $6 million fence merely forced them to find another place to die.
The thing that really upsets me is that the city of Toronto probably thought it was doing something helpful and humane when it made the decision to spend $6 million on a suicide barrier. The city had to pay structural engineers, architects and other highly specialized workers to “solve” the problem of people jumping to their deaths off Bloor Street.
And what did the city’s efforts accomplish? No more clean up on the Don Valley Parkway below. The cleanups now take place elsewhere.
If the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) gets its way, there won’t be a need for corpse cleanups at subway stations either. Earlier this year, the TTC promised to set up suicide barriers at each subway station in the system at a cost of $10 million per station. The TTC admits it isn’t sure where it will get the money but is keen on the idea anyway.
“[Barriers are] definitely seen as being effective within the suicide-prevention community,” said Alexis Martis, communication officer with B.C.’s suicide-prevention centre.
“Anything that’s going to get someone to take a minute and pause and think about it pulls them out of that space … can be very impactful.”
Really? Sounds like wishful thinking. Someone who is inconvenienced by a suicide barrier that prevents them from jumping in front of a subway won’t have a problem finding another suitable location to kill themselves. Toronto is a big city. Cities are filled with dangerously high perches and fast-moving vehicles.
You can’t bubble wrap a society to prevent people from killing themselves. The best you can do is offer support services and hope they’ll take them. Beyond that, building suicide barriers in the belief that they will prevent self-inflicted deaths is just specious reasoning.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mkooiman/415113606/
