This article contains references to suicide. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached by dialing 988, and the Crisis Text Line can be reached by texting HOME to 741741.
After decades of community effort – and dozens of deaths – higher railings are being added to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge.
The bridge, which was completed in 1965, is one of the tallest in the country, hanging 600 feet over the bottom of the Rio Grande Gorge. Its graceful arches and dramatic view attract visitors from around the country. But for Taos County residents, the bridge’s beauty is tarnished by its reputation as a suicide destination.
Since the year 2000, at least 66 people have died from jumping off the bridge, according to Taos County Sheriff Steve Miera. A record-tying seven deaths in 2025, including the death of a local 15-year-old boy, reinvigorated efforts to address the issue.
In December of 2025, the New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT) announced $8 million plans to raise the railings on the sides of the bridge, which currently stand at four feet high. These plans will follow findings from a 2015 study, not acted on for 10 years, which outlined a plan to build an 8-foot tall pedestrian railing, which would curve inwards at the top to make it more difficult to climb.
A 2008 study from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which was updated in 2017, asserts that barriers like railings and netting are “the most effective means of bridge suicide prevention.”
A recent case study comparable to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge is the Vista Bridge in Portland, Oregon. Like the Taos bridge, the Vista Bridge was notorious as a suicide destination, with an estimated average of two deaths per year. But after five people died jumping from the bridge in 2013, the Portland Bureau of Transportation installed 9-foot railings, similar to those that have been proposed by NMDOT. Originally a temporary measure, these barriers have been effective in preventing suicides and remain in place today.
Sheriff Steve Miera leads an operation to recover the body of someone who jumped from the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. To recover bodies, Miera and a specialized team free climb 600 feet down the sides of the gorge. (Photo courtesy of Steve Miera)
Sheriff Miera believes that the improved railings on the Taos bridge will provide both a physical and psychological barrier to suicides, and will work in tandem with emergency hotline phone boxes to save the lives of people who come to the bridge in crisis.
“The semi-canopy anti-climb fence, in conjunction with the call boxes, will work together and be more effective in mitigating the use of that bridge as a [suicide] destination,” Miera said.
The bridge has been closed to foot traffic since September of last year, when three people jumped from the bridge in the same month. Security contractors hired by NMDOT are also stationed at the bridge around the clock, though they were unable to prevent the death of a man who stopped his car in the middle of the bridge and sprinted to the side on Easter of this year. According to Miera, the county is in conversations with NMDOT to erect a temporary barrier until the rail renovations break ground in the fall of 2026.
A Community Effort: The Bridge and Beyond
In December 2025, then-Transportation Secretary Ricky Serna announced the plan to raise the rails at a community rally held at the bridge.
The announcement followed months of community organizing directed towards state leaders in a year where seven people died by jumping from the bridge. But some residents are frustrated that it took the state so long to solve a problem that has been plaguing the community for decades.
“It’s long past time to raise the rails,” Genevieve Oswald, a council member on the Taos Town Council, told the Daily Yonder.
A life-long resident of Taos, Oswald had her first painful experience with the bridge at the age of fifteen, when her classmate’s brother and his girlfriend jumped off the bridge together. Dozens of deaths have occurred since then, each one felt heavily by the tight-knit community, according to Oswald.
“When someone dies at the bridge it’s broadcast in the news. At first there’s no name. And everyone here thinks ‘I hope it’s not someone I know.’ So often, it is in fact someone you know,” she said. “A death at the bridge ripples through the whole community like this, through every living room and social meeting place. And the likelihood that it will open an old wound is also significant.”
The deaths of several local teenagers led some high school students to get heavily involved in last year’s community-wide push for higher railings. Youth council members from True Kids 1, a youth center in Taos, organized rallies and events, and created a short documentary that examined the possibilities for the future of the bridge.
A youth leader speaks at a rally at the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. The Taos-based True Kids 1 Youth Council helped organize community efforts to push for higher railings after seven people committed suicide at the bridge in 2025. (Photo courtesy of Sandy Campbell/True Kids 1)
They also formed a youth council to discuss mental health issues, and how the community can better address the needs of local kids and young adults who are struggling with depression, anxiety, and other conditions.
In 2023, New Mexico had the fifth highest suicide rate in the nation, and the third highest among young people aged 15-24.
These numbers reveal a mental health crisis, especially for New Mexican youth, that will require solutions far beyond building higher railings on the bridge. But in the meantime, the new railings represent a tangible intervention that can help address a vulnerable point in the Taos community, according to Sandy Campbell, executive director of True Kids 1.
Costs of Delay
The family of Noah Salmon, a 15-year old boy who died from jumping off the bridge in September, is suing the State of New Mexico and the New Mexico Department of Transportation for his wrongful death, according to a court document filed on April 28th, 2026.
According to the filing, NMDOT commissioned three separate studies between 2009 and 2018 “that explicitly identified feasible, effective deterrents. Despite this knowledge, NMDOT took no meaningful action to implement these deterrents or otherwise ensure the safety of the public at the Bridge prior to Noah’s death.”
One reason for the delay, according to James Murray, an NMDOT public information officer, was the difficulty of finding a light-weight solution that would not harm the structural integrity of the bridge.
“The bridge was built in 1965 and it was never built to have additions put on it, never mind very heavy additions that would add to the overall weight load,” Murray said in an interview with the Daily Yonder the day before the lawsuit was filed.
Murray says “newer, lighter materials” make the plan to add higher rails to the bridge possible. The renovation will also include replacing the original pedestrian sidewalks with “lightweight concrete,” according to reporting from the Albuquerque Journal.
“We’ve looked at it over the years, and it’s been prohibitively expensive to actually do this sort of thing until recently,” Murray said. Designs proposed in 2009 were estimated to cost between $6 and $7 million (up to $10.8 million today, adjusting for inflation), according to a 2016 article originally published by Taos News.
But Oswald is skeptical that the problem couldn’t have been solved sooner.
“It’s been negligence, and lack of attention to a problem,” she said. “And it is really unfortunate that so many of the young people of my community had to die for that problem to become one that people are paying attention to.”
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