Opponents of proposed bike lanes on Hopkins Street have filed a lawsuit against the city of Berkeley to suspend the bike lane\u2019s approval until further reviews are completed, citing ignored laws and improper procedure.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit, first reported by The Berkeley Scanner, comes a month after City Council approved the contentious street renovation in late July, after hours of public comment.<\/p>\n
The plaintiffs for the lawsuit include neighborhood association Friends of Hopkins Street, the owners of two local businesses and a legally blind senior living nearby.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think that they didn\u2019t proceed properly and legally,\u201d said Robert F. Kane, the attorney who filed the lawsuit Friday, Aug. 28. \u201cThey follow their own rules. There\u2019s an issue about whether there should have been environmental review. There\u2019s issues about accessibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
The plaintiffs claim the project violates the law by neglecting the city\u2019s requirement for a Complete Street Corridor Study and the California Environmental Quality Act. They also claim the plan lacked an accessibility study, violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, and that the approval of the project was \u201carbitrary and capricious.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aside from procedural problems, Hopkins Street bike lane opponents remain concerned about the plan\u2019s impact on small businesses and emergency vehicle access on the street.<\/p>\n
Kane expressed worries that the plan\u2019s removal of about 145 parking spaces would hurt populations unable to use the bike lines, such as senior citizens. He also claimed the loss of parking spots could hurt local small businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the plan is instituted as it is my business will not be there,\u201d said Paul Johnson, one of the plaintiffs, in an email. He and his wife own Monterey Fish Market, a company on Hopkins Street. Alongside the concerns in the lawsuit, he cited bike and pedestrian safety, greenhouse gas emissions from cars circling blocks looking for parking and the cost for the city.<\/p>\n
However, the bike lane\u2019s supporters maintain that the plan\u2019s approval was procedurally valid and will bring safety and accessibility benefits for all people on Hopkins Street.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re confident that safety improvements on Hopkins will move forward despite this lawsuit,\u201d said Ben Gerhardstein, a committee member of the pro-bike lane group, Walk Bike Berkeley, in an email. \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that the City will now need to dedicate its limited resources to defend the project against this groundless lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city has yet to respond to the lawsuit, and a first hearing date is set for Nov. 10.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Mayor Adena Ishii did not respond to a request for comment by The Daily Californian and city spokesperson Matthai Chakko said the city typically does not comment on pending litigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to law school at UC Davis, bike capital of (the) bike world. I\u2019m not against bicycles \u2014 I ride bicycles, okay?\u201d Kane said. \u201cBut this is not the way you do the procedure \u2026 And (the City Council) basically chose to railroad something through that was contrary to their own policies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opponents of proposed bike lanes on Hopkins Street have filed a lawsuit against the city of Berkeley to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[7878,180464,127596,13997,180461,110919,180465,180463,143,145,144,180462,8229,30786],"class_list":["post-457317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-americans-with-disabilities-act","tag-ben-gerhardstein","tag-berkeley-scanner","tag-california-environmental-quality-act","tag-friends-of-hopkins-street","tag-hopkins-street","tag-matthai-chakko","tag-monterey-fish-company","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-robert-f-kane","tag-uc-davis","tag-walk-bike-berkeley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}