Suicide barrier on Penobscot Narrows Bridge could be delayed again

To reach a suicide prevention hotline, call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
The testing that’s now underway of how wind would affect the suicide-prevention fencing that will eventually go on the Penobscot Narrows Bridge could, depending on its findings, result in another delay of the project.
The first delay came earlier this year, when state officials determined that a wind tunnel study would be needed and that the project might not be completed until early 2025.
Because of the bridge’s high position 135 feet above the Penobscot River, engineers have to determine that the fencing will not be damaged by, or affect the bridge, in high winds, according to Maine Department of Transportation officials.
State officials now hope to complete that wind testing this month. If the proposed fence design performs well in the tests, Maine DOT plans to solicit bids in early 2025 for having the fencing installed, according to a department spokesperson. But there is a possibility that the fencing would have to be re-designed and then re-tested, he said.
“If the design requires modification as a result of the wind tunnel testing, then it may push us out to advertise in the second quarter with construction in the fall of 2025,” Maine DOT spokesperson Paul Merrill said.
The bridge, which overlooks the town of Bucksport, features an enclosed observatory 420 feet above the river, at the top of one of its two suspension towers.
State officials initially planned to install the fencing this year, but then decided last summer that wind tunnel testing was needed. Still, at the time, they hoped to have the project completed by early next year.
Roughly a dozen people are believed to have died of suicide by jumping from the Penobscot Narrows Bridge since it was completed in 2006, and others died before then by jumping from the bridge that preceded it, the Waldo-Hancock Bridge. Conversely, there have been no suicides at the Memorial Bridge over the Kennebec River in Augusta since fencing was installed there in 1983, according to suicide prevention advocates.
In 2015 the state installed suicide hotline phones at either ends of the Penobscot Narrows Bridge, in the towns of Verona Island and Prospect, but more than once the phones were found to be not working. Mental health advocates have said that the phones have not proven to be effective, even when they have been functional.
In 2014 and again in 2017 , legislators rejected the idea of putting up preventative fencing on the bridge, saying the cost would be expensive and that people with suicidal thoughts would simply find another way.
That thinking changed in 2023, when the Legislature approved a proposal to spend $2 million on fencing on either side of the 2,120-foot span.