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Bike Lanes

Judge Sides With City Over NBBL in Preliminary Procedural Question

4:34 PM EDT on May 18, 2011

In the opening round of the court case against the Prospect Park West bike lane, the city says that the judge sided with its lawyers on the procedural question at stake in today's hearing. Said a spokesperson for the city's Law Department, which is representing the defense in the case:

Today's court appearance mainly covered scheduling issues. At the appearance, the petitioners made an application to the Court requesting permission to engage in discovery (i.e. requests for documents and questioning witnesses under oath) before the Court considers the merits of the case (i.e. the petitioners' Article 78 petition and DOT's response). Discovery is typically not permitted in an Article 78 proceeding like this one. The petitioners' application was denied; however, the Court will again consider the application when it considers the case merits on June 22. (Note: The June 22 hearing was previously scheduled for June 15 and was moved back today.)

In other words, while no final decisions were made, and the opponents of the bike lane could be granted discovery next month, the city says it won the first round. Legal eagle Streetsblog readers are invited to interpret further in the comments.

Said city attorney Mark Muschenheim, "We are pleased that the Court agreed with us on this procedural issue today. We are confident that the Court will give similar careful consideration to the merits of the case when they are argued on June 22."

Noah Kazis
Noah joined Streetsblog as a New York City reporter at the start of 2010. When he was a kid, he collected subway paraphernalia in a Vignelli-map shoebox. Before coming to Streetsblog, he blogged at TheCityFix DC and worked as a field organizer for the Obama campaign in Toledo, Ohio. Noah graduated from Yale University, where he wrote his senior thesis on the class politics of transportation reform in New York City. He lives in Morningside Heights.

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