Bike path guardrail is too late for one family

JIM Scarpati says his 19-year-old son, Matthew, was a careful young man: He avoided cycling on Long Island Expressway service roads, preferring the calmer bike route along the Wantagh Parkway on the way to Jones Beach. He even rode with a patch kit in case anything went wrong with his red-white-and-blue Colnago.

So when he got a flat along the path on the night of July 20 last year, Matty, as his family called him, stopped, parked his bike on a grassy divide between the path and the Wantagh State Parkway, and set about fixing the tire.

That's when, prosecutors say, motorcyclist James Ryan, speeding on a Harley-Davidson while drunk, veered off the parkway and fatally struck Scarpati.

Ryan, 45, who was critically injured, was charged with second-degree manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, driving under the influence, and reckless driving. On June 29, Judge Jerald Carter is set to decide on Ryan's fitness to stand trial at Nassau County Court in Mineola.

The day after the accident, Jim and Lynn Scarpati, who live in Dix Hills, visited the site where Matty died. Jim said it "cried out for a guardrail": A three-lane highway with no shoulder; the 55-mph speed limit; and a corridor of grass separating thousands of vehicles from the 1,000 or so who use the path each day.

Since that time, the Scarpatis have pressed elected officials to install guardrails. The project is now approved, and the family hopes it will be installed in time for a bike tour Sunday on the parkway in Matthew's name.

Others also had been hurt on the path, leading to lawsuits and calls by advocates for improved safety. In 2002, William Dahl of Seaford and his daughter Alexandra, then 7, were struck by a motorcyclist who skidded off the road. And in 2007, Joel Rubin of Oceanside was hit by an 18-year-old driver who sped off the roadway. Rubin suffered multiple fractures, underwent several surgeries, and was hospitalized for four months.

A state review of crashes on the stretch of parkway alongside the path over a 10-year period showed the area had an elevated rate of crashes where vehicles ran off the roadway. That area, according to the state Department of Transportation, was the site of an average of 3.6 crashes per year, compared with 2.4 a year on "rural freeways" with similar traffic.

In October, Gov. David A. Paterson told the Scarpatis at a meeting with state Sen. Charles Fuschillo (R-Merrick) - who had taken up the cause - that the state would build a cable guardrail along four miles of the path, from Ocean Parkway at Jones Beach to Cedar Creek Park. The $653,000 project is scheduled to be completed early this month.

Although state officials proposed other alternatives, the guardrail was the best option, said Matthew's best friend, Dan Silver, who took part in the discussions about safety upgrades. Silver, an engineering student at the University of Michigan, had studied road design. "Our biggest fear is, we don't want it to be for nothing," said Silver, 19.

Matthew, the youngest of four sons, was just shy of 11 when his brother Michael died in 2001 due to an undiagnosed heart condition. The loss devastated the family, but life went on, and Matthew became a strong student and a standout soccer and lacrosse player.

He had just finished his freshman year at the University of Buffalo, where he'd chosen to major in economics and join the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity. He also was trying to revive a collegiate cycling team. He came home for the summer and got his first job - as a doorman in a high-end building in Gramercy Park.

"There was so much promise in this kid," Lynn said. "I knew that Matt's life mattered. . . . We had to keep walking on this journey for Matt."