Husband begs city to stop speeding cyclists after wife dies

By Lia Eustachewich

November 27, 2014 | 10:59pm

The bike with which Jason Marshall fatally struck Jill Tarlov.

The heartbroken husband of the Connecticut mom fatally struck by a speeding bicyclist in Central Park is calling on the city to crack down on cyclists who have turned the urban oasis into a dangerous racetrack.

Calling the situation a “time bomb,” Michael Wittman said it’s not a matter of if, but when someone else gets hit by a speeding biker.

“It’s too little, too late,” a still-grieving Wittman told The Post, referring to the city’s plan to reduce the speed limit from 25 to 20 mph for cars and bikes.

“You can certainly ride your bike through Central Park — you just can’t weave in and out of mothers and strollers at 30 mph. It’s pretty clear that these guys race each other through the park every day,” the CBS exec said.

His wife, Jill Tarlov, a 58-year-old mother of two, was in the crosswalk at West Drive and 63rd Street on Sept. 18 and about to step onto the curb when cyclist Jason Marshall plowed into her.

Tarlov, who was out shopping for her daughter Anna’s birthday, was left brain dead. She died three days later.

“I suspect she was hit from behind and thrown a good distance and hit with pretty good force,” said Wittman, who has reviewed the accident report but can’t bear to see the autopsy findings. “Doctors told me they’ve never seen an accident that bad from a bike.”

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Jason MarshallPhoto: Facebook

Witnesses told cops that Marshall, 31, was speeding the wrong way down West Drive, yelled at Tarlov to get out of the way, and then tried to swerve around her instead of braking.

I assume if he were driving a car, he’d be arrested on the spot,” Wittman said.

So far, investigators haven’t been able to determine how fast Marshall was traveling, even though the avid cyclist obsessively tracked his more than 700 rides this year online — and clocked a top speed of 35.6 mph in Central Park hours before he hit Tarlov.

He told cops at the time he was going only 8 or 9 mph, sources said.

“His statement that he hit her at 8 or 9 mph is highly questionable to me,” Wittman said. “I just don’t see how that could’ve happened. He never applied the brakes.”

Marshall hasn’t been criminally charged, but the Manhattan DA’s Office is still investigating.

At the time of the incident, the biker, a studio jazz saxophonist, dismissed it as “an unavoidable accident,” and stopped just short of apologizing.

“Since the day of the accident, I and my family have been in constant prayer for her and her family. This is the deepest of pain. It is the deepest of tragedies,” Marshall said in a statement.