Judge saves DC bike lanes

A federal judge ended the Trump administration's efforts to remove protected bike lanes from 15th Street near the National Mall in advance of events celebrating the nation's 250th anniversary, reports Dana Hedgpeth in The Washington Post.

According to Hedgpeth, "Since their construction five years ago, the 15th Street bike lanes have been credited with improving public safety while ferrying nearly 4,000 daily users between Columbia Heights and the Tidal Basin area. Research by the District’s Department of Transportation found that bicycle injury crashes fell by 91 percent, and reports showed there was less congestion after the lanes were installed." Yet the Federal Highway Administration planned to remove a portion of the bike lanes to "improve traffic flow for the hundreds of thousands of tourists" expected in D.C. for the 250th celebrations. 

Last week, Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the government "did not give 'sufficient consideration to available safety and traffic data' in deciding to remove the bike lanes" and did not "identify any problems or unusual traffic congestion caused by the existence of the bike lanes during similar events."