PASADENA >> Citing a “significant increase” in suicide attempts, Pasadena officials are installing temporary fencing on the Colorado Street Bridge to make it harder for someone to climb over the side.

The 10-foot-tall mesh barricades are going up in front of 20 pedestrian alcoves along the bridge over the next week. City officials say benches in the alcoves allowed jumpers to more easily scale existing wrought-iron fences.

“The recent frequency of incidents at the bridge prompted the city to do this as a temporary measure,” said William Boyer, Pasadena’s spokesman. “We’re concerned about the tragic loss of life and it’s the city’s responsibility to try to deter that activity by making the bridge less useful in that regard.”

Members of the City Council will discuss a more permanent solution — such as curved iron fences or a net below the bridge — at the Public Safety Committee meeting 6 p.m. Wednesday.

The Public Works and Public Health departments will present information about how other cities deter bridge jumpers and what preventative measures could work in Pasadena.

A 1987 study by researcher Richard Seiden found that more than 90 percent of the people stopped from jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge did not go on to commit suicide by other means.

At least two people have died from falls off the Colorado Street Bridge this year, but even more have been talked down by first responders in the past six months.

More than 150 suicides have occurred since 1919, 28 in the past decade. From 2011 to 2015, Pasadena police prevented an additional 21 would-be jumpers from committing suicide, according to the city.

Pasadena added the existing 8-foot-tall wrought iron fences as part of seismic retrofitting in 1993 and began posting suicide prevention signs in 2013.

The Colorado Street Bridge earned the nickname “Suicide Bridge” during the Great Depression. At least 79 people jumped from the bridge in the 1930s, prompting the city to spend $20,000 a year to staff the bridge with a police detail, according to a staff presentation.

Boyer said the city is reaching out to websites that use the moniker to ask the owners to stop referring to the bridge by its nickname because the reputation only draws more people.

“There needs to be greater sensitivity as far as naming it like that and putting out information like that,” Boyer said.

Designed and built in 1913 by the firm J.A.L. Waddell, the Colorado Street Bridge is known for its distinctive Beaux-Arts arches and light posts. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and frequently appears in films, including most recently “La La Land.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article has been edited to post the correct photo.