Judge skeptical of bike lanes on narrow Brattle Street
In the latest skirmish in litigation over bike lanes in Cambridge, on Thursday afternoon Superior Court Judge Maureen B. Hogan heard oral argument on whether to grant an injunction stopping the city from proceeding with bike lane deployment on Brattle and Garden streets.
“When I think about Brattle Street having a bike lane on it, and the other street being a one-way – it’s probably pretty good – those streets are so small,” Hogan mused. “And … I don’t know what I’ll decide. I’ll look at the history.”
Ira Zaleznik, representing Madeleine Aster and others opposed to the installations, said the work was complete except for adding flexible posts that delineate the bike lanes, but that he wanted to stop further work. He objected to the city proceeding when 50 residents had petitioned the city’s now-defunct traffic board to reverse the plans.
“Maybe the city should not have gone forward with it without having these lawsuits straightened out, right?” Hogan asked. “Without having a traffic board that could review the claims of the city?”
City of Cambridge attorney Elliott Veloso did not explain the city’s position on the traffic board, but gave a lengthy response about community meetings and the city’s budget process. City Manager Yi-An Huang told the City Council in an Oct. 21 email that “it is the city’s position these petitions do not prohibit proceeding with the Garden Street project which is planned to start on Monday, Oct. 24.”
“I will decide the matter on the papers; if I need to hear you, I will bring you back in,” Hogan said after half an hour of the hearing, cutting off Veloso.
Hogan did not say when she would rule, but a hearing on whether to dismiss the earlier case is on her calendar for Monday.
Veloso and Zaleznik are the lawyers for this case, Madeleine Aster v. City of Cambridge, as well as the earlier case, Cambridge Streets for All v. City of Cambridge.
The Thursday hearing began with confusion over whether the cases should be consolidated, and it’s not apparent that the attorneys conveyed their positions clearly about whether the cases were similar and should be handled together. Zaleznik objected to consolidation, saying he was happy for the court to hear the cases together, but that there should be separate filings in each case.
Hogan said that “clearly” she tried to get Judge John Pappas to take the case. “He wouldn’t.” He is the judge who denied a preliminary injunction in the Cambridge Streets for All case on June 30.
Overall, the judge seemed to expect both attorneys to summarize the issues in the case in a few seconds, and the attorneys seemed to expect to talk for hours. The mismatch made it hard to evaluate the hearing, and difficult to tell whether the issues raised in the motion papers were adequately briefed for the judge.
Brattle street narrow? 🤔 well make it one way like was done on garden.
Gotta use your lawyers and money to litigate this when you can not win through democratic city council elections.
Litigation is an important part of the process, especially when there has been no other serious opportunity for critical input. Community meetings were essentially a sham with clearly no intention by the developers to change anything.
The repeated election of a supermajority of councilors who support bike lane infrastructure in a representative democracy is the definition of community input.
The installation of these bike lanes is required by city law. What do you expect to come out of these community meetings exactly?
I don’t quite agree. Election is certainly not a blank check to just proceed without due deliberation. And any rational large-scale implementation should be based on a clear-eyed look at actual data (not anecdotes) and harm/benefit analyses specific to Cambridge residents. I have not seen that, and believe there is plenty of scope for continued debate. I hope the traffic board will be given the appropriate amount of time to study and discuss these complex issues.
The great thing about American democracy is that all three branches of government have a role, including the judicial. In this case it looks like the courts are going to be involved in the process, which is democracy in action.
The traffic board itself has no authority and is not even guaranteed to be staffed by people who are sympathetic to your pro car position.
It’s three people with no qualifications on engineering or urban planning required.
And what I really will never understand is that at the end of the day there is nothing that can be done to stop these bike lanes from being installed.
You don’t own the street in front of your house, the city does. The city has almost unilateral power to do whatever the hell it wants
shocked that quiet, wealthy, wide brattle street wont be seeing these redundant bike lanes, while the rest of us get saddled with overflow traffic from garden street and other debacles.
most people who voted for city council (and most people did not vote) voted for bike lanes not thinking that so many of them would be so dumb. Bike lanes?Awesome! Eliminating far more parking than necessary- what? No signage or local input? Lets put them on Garden street? Brattle Street? the quietest streets in the city? Also parallel to other roads with bike lanes like Mt. A? What??
q99 This is it in a nutshell. Won’t be voting for any of these councilors next election.
Only 50% of us voted last week. Shame on the rest of you.