A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from immediately removing a stretch of bike lanes connecting downtown Washington to the Tidal Basin, halting a plan to rip out the lanes that had been scheduled to begin on Thursday.
The decision came amid a flurry of litigation this year challenging various changes President Trump and his associates have tried to make to Washington landmarks, alienating preservationists as well as the city’s leadership. The ruling delivered a setback for transportation officials in the Trump administration who had proposed expanding the roadway to make the tourist-heavy area more accommodating to drivers.
In a 61-page opinion, Judge Amy Berman Jackson stopped short of permanently barring the removal of the lanes, but ordered the National Park Service and the Federal Highway Administration to justify their decision through a more thorough review.
Judge Jackson wrote that the plan to remove the lanes — drafted in secret in February — did not include any indication that the agencies “examined the relevant data and articulated a rational connection between the facts found and the choice made.”
The quick ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, and focused on a bike path on 15th Street, which cuts across the National Mall. The section of bike lane was built in 2021, providing a segregated lane for cyclists traversing the area between the White House and the Jefferson Memorial, around the Washington Monument.
The Park Service had quietly aimed to remove the lanes in time for Washington’s cherry blossom festival, which took place in late March and early April, as part of larger changes Mr. Trump has proposed to “beautify” the city ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations later this year.
The plan was delayed when the Washington Area Bicyclist Association got wind of it from information shared by sources at the Interior Department and the D.C. Transportation Department and sued. The administration publicly confirmed its intentions two days later.
Judge Jackson pointed to data collected by the city, which logged more than 200 roadway crashes on the 15th Street corridor between 2015 and 2020. A follow-up study this year found that the lanes had reduced injuries from bicycle crashes by 91 percent and improved traffic overall.
“WABA is ecstatic about this decision,” said Elizabeth Kiker, the executive director of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association. “This was a completely unjustified attempt to remove a bike lane and put thousands of lives at risk — bicyclists and pedestrians.”
The plan to remove the lanes exacerbated tensions between the Trump administration and the city government, which, under Mayor Muriel Bowser, has prioritized building more bike lanes and reducing fatal collisions with cars. The 15th Street lanes were part of a project to add 20 more miles of bike lanes to the city, bringing the city to over 100 miles of lanes in 2022.
But the Trump administration has prioritized reducing funding for alternatives to cars and has used federal authorities to fight efforts to reduce car traffic.
Last year, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced steps to claw back Biden-era funding designed to help cities increase bicycle infrastructure, while criticizing changes that have limited parking and lanes traditionally reserved for cars.
In March, a federal judge in New York ruled that the Trump administration had illegally tried to withhold federal funding for highway projects from the state in a bid to kill congestion pricing, a toll intended to reduce traffic in New York City.
The Transportation Department has indicated that the plans for the bike paths in Washington are in line with Mr. Trump’s executive order last year that claimed federal powers to make the capital “safe, beautiful and prosperous.”
Judge Jackson wrote that with a more thorough review, the government might have formulated a defensible decision to remove the lanes. But she concluded that the decision appeared to have been a hasty attempt to fold the administration’s transportation goals into planning for the nation’s semiquincentennial celebrations.
To make the point, Judge Jackson quoted a Justice Department lawyer’s argument during a hearing in April.
“That’s the policy decision of the agency and the stated rationale here includes the fact that they want these roads open for the American 250 celebration,” the attorney said.
