The D.C. Department of Transportation has started assessing every bridge in the city to determine whether barriers should be added to prevent people from using the spans to end their lives.

In an email to DCist/WAMU, DDOT director Everett Lott said the assessments were happening “to ensure they not only remain a safe means of transportation, but also present the needed security for human welfare.”

The decision was spurred by a public campaign launched recently by D.C. resident Dr. Chelsea Van Thof, who in April lost her long-term partner to suicide on the William Howard Taft Bridge that carries Connecticut Avenue over Rock Creek Park. It also represents a shift in policy; when DCist/WAMU first asked DDOT about barriers 10 days ago, Lott said they were not being considered.

Experts in suicide prevention say that studies from Maine to England and Canada have shown that barriers have led to decreases in instances of deaths by suicide from bridges, and without subsequent increases at other bridges. A 2017 study of a variety of barrier types on Swiss bridges concluded that “barriers and safety nets were both effective, with mean suicide reduction of 68.7% (barriers) and 77.1% (safety nets), respectively.”

Construction of suicide netting on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is expected to be completed next year; more than 1,800 deaths have been linked to the famous span.

The Duke Ellington Bridge in Adams Morgan had eight-foot-tall barriers installed almost 40 years ago after a rash of deaths by suicide. But the barriers were almost removed under pressure from some neighborhood groups and historic preservationists, and that opposition sank plans to put similar barriers on the Taft Bridge. (A 1993 academic study found that the barriers led to a decrease in deaths by suicide from the Ellington Bridge.)

But historic preservation groups now say they are not opposed to barriers or netting on historic bridges. “I’m confident there is a solution for this that everyone can come to,” says Rebecca Miller, director of the D.C. Preservation League, about barriers on the 115-foot-long Taft Bridge, which was finished in 1907 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

Miller recently contacted Van Thof to offer guidance on how the process would play out to actually get barriers of some sort added to the Taft Bridge. Given that it’s a historic bridge straddling Rock Creek Park, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts would have to sign off on any barriers, and the National Capital Planning Commission, National Park Service, and D.C. State Historic Preservation Office would have to be consulted.

“You can’t just snap your fingers and put things up,” says Miller.

But the first step starts with DDOT, which said it is considering options for the bridge, including possible designs and cost.

A pair of Advisory Neighborhood Commissions around the Taft Bridge have already said they support the installation of barriers, with one of the resolutions citing data from the D.C. Medical Examiner showing that over the last 12 years there had been 13 suicides on the Taft Bridge, equating to half of all bridge-related suicides in the District over that time.

A spokeswoman for D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) said in an email she considers them a “worthy goal.”

As for Van Thof, she says she’s pleased to see progress being made, but isn’t declaring victory yet. “I’m cautiously optimistic about this process moving forward, but I know this isn’t a 100% win yet, and I’m not going to feel like I can stop fighting this hard for it until it is a guaranteed win,” she says.

“Until I see a barrier on that bridge, I won’t feel any sort of satisfaction.”

If you need help or know someone who does, please call or text the national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. In D.C., you can also call the city’s 24-hour mental health hotline at 1-888-793-4357.