At times, they have promised $1 million to anyone who presented them with a workable solution. But after more than 15 years, employees of the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transporta­tion District, as well as its 19-member board of directors, have come to learn that there are no easy answers when it comes to preventing vehicle collisions on the world-famous Golden Gate Bridge. It has also become apparent that if ever a person does invent an effective barrier system for the bridge, the value of that design is worth much more than a million dollars.

     In addition to the bridge’s six ten-foot-wide lanes which feel even narrower when traveling at or above the 45 M.P.H. bridge speed limit-un­predictable weather conditions can make transportation between Mann and San Francisco at times, treacherous. In 1995, there were 80 vehicle accidents on the bridge, and in 1994 there were three fatalities related to cars veering out of their lane.  Bridge engineers are hopeful, but not overly optimistic, that a lightweight, movable barrier system capable of fending off a 4,000-pound vehicle could someday be developed.  Many proposals have been made. And each one of them has been rejected by the bridge district’s board of directors.

     The most common technical hurdle for engineers is to create a barrier that is strong enough to withstand the impact of a car and yet thin enough so that it does not significantly reduce the bridge’s overall lane widths. If any one of the lane widths were reduced further, the likelihood of vehicles side-swiping one another would increase, bridge officials say.  A design by Barrier Systems was recently rejected after it was reviewed by engineers at Northwestern University.  “They concluded that although the design would stop a head-on collision, it could increase the number of rear-end and side-swipe accidents, which could have a detrimental impact on the overall safety of the bridge,” said bridge manager Robert Warren in the mid-80’s, the district-paid for a member of its board of directors to fly to Australia to review a design, but it too was determined to cause more harm than good.

    The search continues.  “They’ve been working on it so long, they’ve got to be close,” said Golden Gate Bridge Captain Ronald Garcia, who believes that as long as people disobey the bridge speed limit, there will be fatalities. “If somebody could up with a workable solution, I really believe the district would do it. No matter what the cost. Well, maybe not at any cost,” Garcia added. He said that about eight years ago the bridge district publicized a $1 million) offering to any inventor who developed a barrier that worked. Just last week, a San Anselmo inventor called a press conference at the Mann Civic Center in San Rafael to unveil ye another design, but this one could work.  

   Robert M. Guernsey proposed that six-inch retractable barriers, made out of galvanized steel, could provide the necessary rigidity to prevent a vehicle from crossing over into oncoming traffic. The barriers could be raised or lowered into the ridge surface to create different lane configurations, depending on the volume of traffic in either direction.