The Cambridge bike lane battle is heading to court
Businesses and residents have sued the city over a plan for 25 miles of separated bike lanes, saying lost parking spaces will hurt sales.
A faction of local business owners and residents in Cambridge sued the city Friday, seeking to reel back an ambitious bike lane expansion project that they say will eliminate precious parking spaces and devastate small businesses.
The suit, filed by the newly formed group Cambridge Streets for All, asks a Middlesex Superior Court judge to block the city from new construction under its Cycling Safety Ordinance, which mandates separated bike paths be created on 25 miles of Cambridge streets by the end of the 2020s.
“We believe improved bike lane access to be an excellent goal, but not when the parking for business customers and staff, as well as for neighborhood residents and patients of local medical providers is being completely gutted, which will clog side streets where people live,” Lee Jenkins, a plaintiff in the suit who is the owner of Violette Gluten Free Bakery in Porter Square, said in a statement.
The suit also asks the judge to order Cambridge to take down existing bike lanes built under the initiative that eliminated parking spaces, such as an initial stretch that opened on Massachusetts Avenue in North Cambridge in November.
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