Robert Guernsey opened the back door of his San Rafael apartment, gesturing toward the driveway. There it sat - in between the hull of a work-in-progress motorcycle and a barbecue - ten feet tall, painted international orange - a replica of a center span of the Golden Gate Bridge.
“It took a year to build this model,” said Guernsey admiring the structure. “But it’s served its purpose very well.”
As imposing as the model is, Guernsey lugged it several times to Golden Gate Bridge director meetings, during his 19-year campaign to convince them to install a moveable traffic barrier on the bridge.
“I was watching a newscast back in 1989,” Guernsey recalled. “They were talking about a head-on collision on the Golden Gate Bridge. And I thought, hmmm I think I can make a difference by making a moveable barrier for it.”
Guernsey envisioned a permanent barrier that could be installed in the roadway - preventing the dangerous head-on collisions that have claimed more than 30 lives since 1971. This weekend the bridge district will close for three days to finally install a $30 million dollar moveable traffic barrier, a design that is slightly different than the one Guernsey envisioned - not that it makes any difference to him.
“Now somebody who comes from Germany or Japan,” said Guernsey, “can come over here and drive their car across the Golden Gate Bridge without worrying about getting in a head-on collision.”
Frank Schwieger didn’t come from Germany or Japan. He came from a pest control job in San Francisco on his way home to Marin when he got a call from his supervisor while crossing the bridge. He remembers it was Valentine's Day, 1984.
“The lane adjacent to the right lane on the far side was open, and I got in that lane,” said Schwieger, tucked into the couch in his Novato mobile home. “Later on I found out that lane was not supposed to be open for me.”
Schwieger veered into a center lane that was supposed to be coned off, slamming head-on into a truck heading the opposite direction. It took rescuers 50 minutes and the jaws of life to pry him from his crumpled wreck. His body was riddled with injuries - which have made it difficult to move and impossible to work ever since.
“Of course had there been a barrier there a long time ago,” said Schwieger, “that accident would’ve never happened.”
Schwieger joined Guernsey’s advocacy group called Citizens for a Safe Golden Gate Bridge. At its nadir, the group launched a failed petition drive to try and force Marin County Supervisors. But Guernsey pressed-on, visiting accident sites and attending meeting after meeting. A room in his home holds more than 20 binders chronicling every news story on accidents and suicides on the bridge.
Guernsey and Schwieger remain close - sharing news of the impending project to install a barrier, following decades of calls for one.
Guernsey brushed at the dust on the bridge model holding center court in his driveway. He was making plans to stash it back in the garage beneath his model train set. He said the bridge replica had done its job.
“It’s finally going to happen,” he said.
For details on the bridge closure, click here.
