Taos County Sheriff Steve Miera is correct: Preventing suicide matters more than aesthetics. That’s why it is time to stop delays and install suicide prevention features at the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. Not only will fewer people jump off the bridge to their deaths, first responders no longer will have to risk their lives recovering bodies or deal with post-traumatic stress after the arduous journey down into the gorge.

Delay in making the bridge safer is inexcusable.

Yes, there are crisis phone lines installed on the bridge. But efforts to construct physical barriers — a higher barrier or nets — to deter jumpers have stalled in recent years.

An unsuccessful attempt to locate the body of a jumper last month shows why the current situation at the bridge is untenable.

The body, reported on Nov. 10, apparently has been washed downstream. Rescuers have not been able to find it. The hike down is fraught with danger, with some portions of the path barely 10 inches wide. Rescuers freeclimb almost a 600-foot vertical descent on their way to search for and recover bodies. It’s unfair to put search-and-rescue teams at risk when other solutions exist.

A 2015 Department of Transportation feasibility study assessed the bridge’s ability to support additional weight and determined renovations would be required to install suicide deterrents. Two solutions were identified: a net or higher fencing.

Renovations, though, also could mean changes to the bridge’s structure. In 2015, projected cost of a higher barrier was $1.7 million, the price of which, we are sure, will have increased because of the delays. Recoveries cost anywhere from $6,000 to $12,000. The real costs, of course, can’t be measured in dollars.

As for debating whether the barriers work, various studies have reached different conclusions, but one of the gold standards, published in 2015 in The Lancet Psychiatry journal, found that installation of such barriers could reduce deaths by more than 90% at high-risk locations. The best results come from restricting access, encouraging people to get help and increasing the likelihood of third-party intervention. At the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, only crisis lines are available. It’s not enough.

In San Francisco at the famous Golden Gate Bridge, a suicide prevention barrier already seems to be having a significant effect even though it’s not completed. There, a net will be installed by the end of the December at the latest, according to the Bridge Rail Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge. In 2022, there were 22 confirmed suicides; through October 2023, 13 suicides have been confirmed, which would be a significant year-to-year decline if those numbers hold.

Now, to do the same in New Mexico. The Department of Transportation is not the only agency with authority over the bridge, so it’s complicated. The bridge also lies within the jurisdiction of Taos Pueblo, the Bureau of Land Management and other entities. They first need to reach agreement about the need to build barriers and identify a source of funding.

So first, agree that action is required. Then fund a more detailed study of just what would be needed to build higher guardrails on the bridge — the last DOT study did not look closely enough at the structural integrity of the current bridge. Choose a method — net or fence; we agree with Sheriff Miera that a fence is preferable, considering jumpers caught by a net still would need rescue. But let the study be made to assess possibilities. Then, choose one and fund the project.

A higher fence doesn’t have to be ugly. Use light but strong material. Create patterns in the metal to make the barrier more than just a fence — it could become an artistic addition to the iconic bridge. Most of all, act to save lives.