Bronx Biker Dies in Bear Mountain Parkway Accident in Cortlandt

A Bronx man riding his motorcycle east on the Bear Mountain State Parkway was killed Sunday night after colliding with a minivan, according to The Journal News’ Lee Higgins.

The 47-year-old man, James Parker, reportedly crossed the double-yellow line on the Bear Mountain Parkway near the Route 6 exit in Cortlandt around 8 p.m. Sunday and struck the van head-on, which threw him from his motorcycle. He was brought to the Hudson Valley Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead.

The passengers and drivers in the van, Elizabeth Santos, Antonia Fisher and a 15-year-old girl, all of Cortlandt, were taken to Westchester Medical Center with minor injuries, the Journal News reports.

This is the second fatality on the Bear Mountain Parkway in Cortlandt in the last seven months, and the fourth fatality among hundreds of accidents in the last 11 years. Parker's death comes just two weeks after the Town of Cortlandt demanding a barrier between east and westbound lanes on the state-owned parkway.

The family of a 27-year-old who died in a car crash where a driver swerved into the opposite lane last December, joined the Town, explaining they wanted to help get a barrier on the parkway before “someone else dies.”

The Town is lobbying the State Department of Transportation to install the barrier, since it is a state-owned road. Following Barnes’ accident in December, a spokeswoman for the DOT said the state was unlikely to install a barrier because it lacks the manpower, equipment and funding to do so.  

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