In 2024, a stainless-steel net was added to the length of the Golden Gate Bridge to deter people from leaping to their death. Research has long shown that erecting barriers at suicide hot spots saves lives, and various groups have for decades argued that the bridge is too easy to jump from. “But none of them were able to really stick with it and really push hard,” says Paul Muller, a retired marketing professional who co-founded Bridge Rail Foundation nearly 20 years ago.
Muller and two parents of children who had jumped from the bridge created the advocacy group of volunteers focused on eliminating suicides at the Golden Gate Bridge. They wanted a suicide barrier built: either a higher railing or a net. Doing so was worth the financial and aesthetic cost of modifying the world’s most iconic bridge, Bridge Rail maintained. One family went to every board meeting of the bridge district for about 10 years, sharing the story and holding a photograph of their child who had jumped. “What the parents of lost children brought to this was an ability to stick with it and keep telling their stories,” Muller says.
Their persistence paid off. A 2025 study published in the journal Injury Prevention found that the net has reduced suicides by 73%.
People are looking to the net, and to Bridge Rail, as a model. “I’ve had conversations with people in at least 10 or 15 different states where there's an effort going on to resolve the suicide problem,” Muller says.