A state Supreme Court judge has lifted a temporary order blocking the city from rolling out its bedeviled 14th Street busway pilot. Justice Eileen Rakoff ruled that the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) complied with state law that mandates the agency study the impact of banning private cars on the surrounding residential streets.
After reviewing documents from the city and the coalition of Manhattan residents petitioning the busway, Rankoff lifted the temporary restraining order that blocked the pilot’s July launch on Tuesday. DOT spokesperson Alana Morales says the agency is beginning work “immediately” and will launch the busway on Monday, August 12.
Transit advocates who have long called for the pilot program, which was originally timed to launch with work on the L train’s Canarsie Tunnel, praised the ruling as a “huge victory.”
“When riders organize, the whole city wins,” says Danny Pearlstein with the Riders Alliance. “The 14th Street busway will provide faster and more reliable bus trips, saving precious time for tens of thousands of people who badly need it.”
Others charge that the ruling sets a key precedent for other streets where residents seek to use the courts to “circumvent the democratic process in order to preserve the car-dominant status quo”— such as Central Park West where members of an Upper West Side condo board are suing to block a bike lane, says Marco Conner, the deputy director of Transportation Alternatives.