The Colorado Street Bridge, Photograph courtesy Pasadena Heritage
Few Pasadena images are as stirring and iconic as that of the Colorado Street Bridge, as it spans the Arroyo, securely linking West Pasadena to Orange Grove and Colorado Boulevards. Seen at a distance or from standing underneath its arches, which soar like an open-air vaulted ceiling, it’s a beacon and a gateway.
And standing on the bridge, you can see the Rose Bowl Stadium to the north, framed by the ever-changing sunlight sometimes poured, sometimes splashed on the San Gabriel Mountains.
But the bridge’s presence seems to attract beauty and darkness in equal measure.
Following a small spate of suicide attempts in the Spring of 2017, a task force was convened by the City to create a design for construction for changes to deter and prevent suicides.
The task force has been steadily working for more than a year to provide recommendations for a more effective, permanent solution to the ongoing problem.
Tuesday, Heritage Trust Preservation Director Andrew Salimian will host and moderate a panel discussion with some task force members and project architects to discuss the process and outcome for the design of the proposed new fence.
“This is kind of a continuation of the public process,” Similian told Pasadena Now Monday. “With this fencing design or barrier design, it’s important for the entire community to stay engaged, and not just people that follow Pasadena Heritage, or people that are involved in kind of these architectural issues, but really, the whole audience of Pasadena, because the bridge is something that everyone drives by walks by, and it affects people, they have a very strong relationship to it.”
Joining Similian on the panel will be Pasadena Director of Public Works Ara Maloyan, long time reservation advocate Claire Bogaard, Steve Line, project architect for design firm McDonald & McDonald, as well as Teresa Grimes, of Galvan Preservations.
“The main goal of this is to just provide some kind of reasonable protections, um, to deter suicides. I don’t think we can completely solve the problem, and we’re not trying to get to the level of putting an entire envelope over the bridge, you know, a cage-like structure. We just need something reasonably tall enough that will deter people and make them reconsider their choices.
The group is also seeking to create some type of life-size sectional mockup, something they will also discuss on the panel, as well as the project’s timeline.
More information on the panel discussion is available at https://pasadenaheritage.org/
