Cortlandt Officials Vow to Continue Bear Mountain Barrier Fight

After two recent motor vehicle fatalities and a petition approaching 2,000 signatures, Cortlandt town officials thought they had the momentum needed to get the state Department of Transportation to construct a barrier on the Bear Mountain Parkway.

It took William Gorton, the DOT’s acting director for this region, two paragraphs to answer town officials. Unfortunately, Gorton’s answer wasn’t much different from the other answers Cortlandt Supervisor Linda Puglisi has received from the DOT in the more than two decade she’s been in office. During that time, zero has been done, according to Puglisi.

“Thank you for your letter dated July 2, 2012 to the Commissioner Joan McDonald, regarding safety concerns on the Bear Mountain Parkway,” Groton wrote in a letter dated Aug. 15.

Gorton continued:“The New York State Department of Transportation is aware of safety concerns on the Bear Mountain Parkway in the Town of Cortlandt, and we are considering our options as we work toward developing safety enhancement on the Parkway.”

“They did not say thank you for the petitions and we are going to do something,” Puglisi said during Tuesday’s board meeting. “They just said they’re going to be evaluating it. The same thing that they’ve been saying to us and to other communities for years.”

The Town of Cortlandt has been fighting f, route: {:controller=>"articles", :action=>"show", :id=>"cortlandt-asks-for-barrier-on-bear-mountain-parkway"} -->or years for the state to install a barrier on the Bear Mountain Parkway for safety reasons. The town can’t make any changes to the parkway because it is state road.

In June, Town officials on the parkway with the family of 27 year old who was killed in a car accident on that road. One week after the press conference, a Bronx motorcyclist