New group of plaintiffs with familiar argument attempts to stop city’s installation of bike lanes
A rider nears Porter Square on June 21 using a Massachusetts Avenue bike lane. (Photo: Marc Levy)
A second attempt to stop Cambridge’s installation of protected bike lanes was filed Tuesday in the state’s Supreme Judicial Court, after an attempt last month in Middlesex County Superior Court was rejected by a judge.
This filing has the same lawyer but 20 new plaintiffs, led off by Madeleine Aster. Notable among the plaintiffs is Gus Rancatore, of Toscanini’s ice cream. The filing was first reported Wednesday on the Twitter account of reporter John Hawkinson.
The new case focuses on one line of attack from July’s case: that the City Council lacked the authority to pass its Cycling Safety Ordinance in 2019 and an amendment the next year setting a timeline for bike lane installation, and the city’s traffic director also lacks authority. Instead, the city should follow Chapter 455 of the Acts of 1961 and have a traffic board make decisions, the filing says.
“The city has acted as if the special act did not exist,” says the filing by attorney Ira Zaleznik, of the Boston firm Lawson & Weitzen.
The new filing acknowledges in a footnote the previous Middlesex County Superior Court case, which was filed by a group called Cambridge Streets for All. “A single justice dismissed the petition, concluding that no error of law had been shown. Neither the decision of the Superior Court nor the single justice ever addressed the issue raised herein as to whether the city complied with the requirements of the special act,” Zaleznik says in the suit filed Tuesday.
Cambridge spokesperson Lee Gianetti said Thursday that the city has “just received the new complaint and is evaluating it.” Describing it as ongoing litigation, Gianetti said the city had “no comment other than that the Law Department will continue to vigorously defend the city’s position and legal interests.”
The Cambridge Bicycle Safety group, which supports having a citywide network of protected bike lanes, was among those filing briefs in the first case. It aimed to help convince Judge John Pappas not to grant an injunction that would stop bike-lane installation and undo lanes that had already been installed.
Member Nate Fillmore said the group wasn’t working on a response this time.
“This seems like the exact same approach, just in a different venue,” Fillmore said Thursday of the new filing. “It seems like the city did a really robust job with the last one, and it may not be crucial for us to weigh in separately. What they said and what we said was very similar for the previous lawsuit as well.”
Seeing the same attorney but with an all-new set of plaintiffs from July’s filing was a bit of a puzzle, Fillmore said. “I assume it’s the same group trying to get another bite at the apple to try to get a preliminary injunction,” he said. “It would be logical that the same people could not sue the same party for the same issue in two different courts?”
Messages looking for clarity on the relationship between the filings were left Thursday with Zaleznik by voice mail and with Aster by email. Shauna Hamilton, a publicist working for Cambridge Streets for All, said the group is not involved in the second filing.
“The thing that’s scary about these requests for preliminary injunction is that you went through this whole democratic process and then [a small group] can decide to put the kibosh on it all. This was the subject of numerous elections, all resulting in supermajorities supporting making these changes. Then we got a law passed, following all the procedures for the law. It is demoralizing to go through the whole democratic process and then have the sort of anti-democratic legal filing potentially undermine things,” Fillmore said. “They haven’t had a lot of success so far. So I’m hopeful that they will continue to not have success.”
The rejection of the first injunction was due primarily to doubts the group’s case would succeed “on the merits” of its arguments, Pappas said in his July 1 memo.
An appeal for Cambridge Streets for All was filed in that case July 20 by Zaleznik, according to the court’s online docket system.
On Friday a notice of motion to dismiss was filed by the city’s Law Department through Elliott Veloso, an assistant city solicitor.
This is ridiculous.
With the proposal to eliminate a large # of mbta buses in Cambridge the trend unfortunately seems to be less mbta buses not more.
In light of this does it make sense to as a part of the dedicated bike lanes make dedicated bus lanes?
If the mbta was increasing buses / routes this would all make sense. Unfortunately the mbtas proposal is the exact opposite.
I live near one of the Toscanini’s and the owner consistently illegally parks and their delivery trucks also always block bike lanes. The owner parks all day in loading zones near the first street location or in the chaplain parking spot near the one in central square. I’ll be reporting him to the police daily. I hope he figured out how to pay his taxes too.
That lawyer must be laughing his way to the bank. 1st lawsuit fails. Get new clients. Try again.
That lawyer is like Saul Goodman. Haha
The bike lobby is very loud. Unfortunately, no one seems to care about the restaurants and small businesses that are already going under or the elderly or disabled who need cars to get around. Cambridge has become Texas on the Left.
the photo used to illustrate the story is misleading. rarely is mass ave this empty and if it is riding a bike shouldn’t be that scary. The problem still lies where to pull over and drop off. It seems that able-bodied younger people have the advantage over disabled and elderly. This is ageist. many of the bikers are from other municipalities and are through-traffic. They can be bullies. If only they could follow traffic rules.
@joyce As was made clear in the last failed lawsuit, there is zero evidence that bike lanes are harming businesses. Evidence from all over, including Somerville, says the opposite. Bike lanes help local businesses. Only a minority of Cambridge shoppers use cars.
Many elderly and disabled can’t use cars. Many seniors on fixed incomes can’t afford cars. Do you want to help the elderly? Bus lanes and increased bus service.
Bus lanes and bike lanes also help lower-income people who can’t afford cars. They need to get to work too. They shouldn’t have to risk their lives to do that.
@pete Cars break the rules as often or more often than cyclists. And they cause more damage. Nearly 100% of pedestrian deaths and 90% of pedestrian injuries are due to cars. Look it up.
Bike lanes help low-income people (including students) who can’t afford cars. They shouldn’t have to risk their lives to move around the city. Not carrying for the vulnerable is elitist.