NEW YORK CITY — Orwellian. Unlawful creeping kudzu. Appeasement to “biker bros” and “climate change zealots.”
That’s how a new federal civil rights lawsuit describes New York City’s Open Streets program.
The suit filed by several New Yorkers with disabilities argues the program violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. It robs tens of thousands of disabled residents of their independence by turning them into shut-ins through street closures, the lawsuit argues.
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“The City’s labeling of its actual closure of public streets as an ‘Open Streets Program’ has obfuscated the fact that throughout the City blocks of streets, connections of those streets, and the public accommodations on those streets are completely closed to vehicular traffic and are actually closed on a continuous, daily basis, to individuals with disabilities whose only means of accessing any of these public services is by motor vehicle,” the lawsuit states.
“The City’s system of street closures cumulatively impedes hundreds of thousands of individuals protected by federal, state, and municipal law.”
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A spokesperson for the city’s Department of Transportation said officials will review the case.
“Open Streets enhances safety, accessibility, and equity for a large number of New Yorkers using the roads, including seniors and people with disabilities,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
The complaint isn’t the only lawsuit over the city’s Open Streets program, but it’s arguably the most colorful.
After starting with a photograph of and quote from George Orwell, the complaint repeatedly refers to the program as the “Closed Streets Program.”
The document also argues the city’s “mandarins” in the transportation department have “rammed this program down the throats of the disabled to appease a population of affluent ‘biker bros.'” It then employs some fascistic imagery of questionable taste.
“The cyclists are affiliated with the billionaire-funded ‘Transportation Alternatives,’ a jackbooted lobbyist group of climate change zealots who ‘demand that cars be barred’ from Manhattan altogether (…) and whose ‘brown shirts’ viciously harass anyone who interferes with their self-proclaimed right to exclusive dominion over the City’s public streets and sidewalks …,” the document states.
Transportation Alternatives representatives didn’t return Patch’s request for comment
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