Guard Rail for the Wantagh Parkway Bike Path

LIFun4Kids — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:48:00 GMT

This is what the power of belief, passion and persistence did for us....

Helping the residents of Long Island find activities quickly and easily is our goal. But the safety of them is our number one concern and whenever their safety may be at risk, we feel it is our responsibility to bring their attention to it.

Back in February of this year, we started a facebook group called "Guard Rail for Wantagh Parkway Bike Path" after taking the kids to a very popular bike path that runs along the northbound lanes of the Wantagh State Parkway between the Jones Beach Theatre and Merrick Road on Long Island, New York. It's hard to believe how dangerously close the bike path was to the parkway. It was inconceivable to us there was no safety barrier between a parkway with a 55mph speed limit and a recreational bike path. In some places, the separation between the road and the path was merely a narrow patch of grass.

Our facebook group’s description states: “The path is so close to the Wantagh Parkway...it's an accident waiting to happen.” Our group started with only 60 members and became stagnant…until an accident did happen…

On July 20th, 19 year old Matthew Scarpati of Dix Hills was repairing his flat tire on the bike path and was killed when a drunken motorcyclist struck him.

Days after the accident, our group grew by the hundreds every day. We started a petition to install a guard rail along the bike path, and hit the pavement to collect signatures. We asked local bike shops to help collect signatures, spoke at several local PTA meetings, contacted the local media and contacted local officials. With the help of Matthew’s family and friends and with the help of some group members, we were able to collect @ 3300 signatures by August 19th. The signatures were presented to Senator Fuschillo at this time when the family met with him to discuss the proposals that the NYSDOT prepared to help improve safety on the bike path. The signatures were forwarded to Governor Paterson.

Within 2 weeks of the meeting with the Senator, the NYSDOT started work by closing the right lane on the parkway, creating a buffer lane and installing a rumble strip. It was completed by Labor Day. Then they planned on installing flexible vertical delineators to separate the bike path from the parkway to provide an additional visual warning to motorists about the edge of the roadway. Well in our opinion, safety and flexible do NOT belong in the same sentence in this case. Something stronger needed to be installed!! On August 28^th, they released a press release that stated: “We will be reaching out to the community for input.” Instead of waiting for them to reach out to us, we called them and asked exactly what were they planning on doing to obtain community input…was there a public meeting that we should be aware of? Weeks went by, and we called again several times. Finally in October we was asked to meet with the NYSDOT at their regional office to discuss my opinions, as well as the group’s opinions of their so-called proposal. They agreed that the flexible barrier was not an option and proposed a steel cable guard rail system instead.

At this time, we had another 2500 signatures to send to the Governor. But what we didn’t know was Governor Paterson was meeting with the family to approve the guard rail that same week!! So almost 6000 signatures and only 94 days after Matthew Scarpati’s death, a guard rail was approved!!

But we’re still not done!...The family has set up a scholarship fund in Matthew’s name. We are helping the family plan a charity event in memory of Matthew to take place ON the northbound lanes of the Wantagh Parkway adjacent to the bike path. All bicyclists, pedestrians, rollerbladers, joggers, etc. are invited to participate. We are applying for the permits needed to close the parkway for the event to take place some time in May 2010. We are only in the beginning stages and have so much more to do.

Many people have told us they won’t use the bike path until the guard rail is installed….neither will we. The NYSDOT plans on starting the guard rail in early April and finish by Memorial Day. Much more info to come!!

LIFun4Kids.com Blog : guard rail

Guard Rail for the Wantagh Parkway Bike Path