Mother of Son Killed in Accident Pushes for Median on Bear Mtn. Parkway
Carole Wilson doesn’t want any other family to experience the same pain and heartbreak that she has suffered for the last six months since her 27-year-old son was killed in a car accident on the Bear Mountain Parkway in Cortlandt.
“It’s just ridiculous that people have to die that’s unnecessary,” she said. “It would have been avoided if there was a barrier.”
Wilson’s son, LaMarr W. Barnes, who lived in Peekskill, was a passenger in a 2008 Nissan Altima, driven by a friend, Stephanie Florentino, 24, of Shrub Oak, which was heading east on the parkway on December 9, 2011. Keith Roberts, 55, of Cortlandt was driving west in a 2012 Nissan Altima when a white SUV in front of him stopped to make a left turn onto Locust Avenue. Roberts swerved to avoid hitting the SUV and slammed into Florentino’s vehicle, killing Barnes, a carpenter and father of a five-year-old son.
There have been three fatalities and several accidents in the same area of the state roadway. The Town of Cortlandt passed a resolution in 2008 urging the state Department of Transportation to install a median barrier, and approved two similar resolutions this year, including one last month after being contacted by Wilson, a resident of Fishkill.
Cortlandt and Wilson have been collecting signatures on petitions in an effort to collect at least 5,000 by the end of this month.
“It’s a lot of work but something has to be done,” Wilson said. “They’ve heard the stories and tragedies that have happened on that part of the highway and something should have been done already. I don’t think it’s too much to ask the state to put up a barrier or a median. It’s just a tragedy that it has to come to this to get something done. We lost a son, a brother, a father, a fiancé.”
Department of Transportation officials have stated they were planning to install a barrier next year as part of a $60 million capital project to reconstruct the parkway, but due to the economy “the project has been pushed back because it does not fit into our current capital program focus.”
The DOT also maintained there haven’t been enough severe accidents at the intersection of Bear Mountain Parkway and Locus Avenue over the last four years to warrant an “on-going regional investigation of the area.” However, the DOT is scheduled to reconstruct the interchange of the parkway and Route 6 in 2017, which would include the installation of a concrete median barrier on a short segment of the roadway.
Cortlandt Supervisor Linda Puglisi said she was “most definitely” frustrated by the DOT and its approach to the dangerous conditions on the parkway.
“I don’t understand their decisions so far,” she said.
Wilson is also perplexed by the DOT and said Puglisi mentioned having a rally at the intersection to bring more attention to the problem.
“There’s two signs there that say no left turn,” she said. “If we have to do a fundraiser or go to Albany, I’m willing to do it. I just want something done.”
By Rick Pezzullo
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.
