The maddening hum of safety slats on the pedestrian handrails of the Golden Gate Bridge will finally be silenced under a recently released proposal by the Bridge District.
The fix — devised and tested by bridge engineers in consultation with aerodynamic and acoustic experts — calls for attaching U-shaped clips containing a thin rubber sleeve to all 12,000 vertical slats on the railings.
— The San Francisco Chronicle
The haunting acoustic hum is the direct result of a $12 million wind retrofit project authored by the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District. A few enterprising locals have made the most of the deafening din, although the majority of drivers in the Bay Area were vocally against it, leading to the change.
The newly-approved upgrades will install a series of sound-absorbing rubber clips along the bridge’s pedestrian walkway that can mitigate the effects of the larger wind safety slats by up to 75%, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The costs will run around $450,000 and will be completely installed by the end of next year barring any major delays.
“It’s a tricky business. We want to be absolutely sure we get it right,” bridge spokesman Paolo Cosulich-Schwartz told the Chronicle back in May. “We will never sacrifice the structural integrity of the bridge, but we want to be responsive to our neighbors.’’
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