The Department of Transportation has blanket authority when it comes to placing Citi Bike racks — and even the courts lack the power to overrule the agency, a city lawyer argued in court papers.
Locations for the bike-share program “are beyond the scope of judicial review,” and the DOT’s power is an “unquestioned government function,” city attorney Mary O’Sullivan wrote in response to a lawsuit filed by a Chelsea co-op.
She even compared the placement of Citi Bike racks to designating streets for alternate-side parking or or making a street one-way.
The city removed a six-bike section from the 39-bike kiosk outside The Cambridge, on West 13th Street, in May after The Post reported an ambulance crew struggled to get to a 92-year-old resident in distress.
But the co-op board still sued, with lawyer Steven Shore calling the rack the “poster child” for all that was wrong with the program’s rollout and Community Board 2 writing a letter to the DOT saying residents were blindsided by the rack’s size.
“The location of these large stations is already having detrimental and potentially dangerous consequences, such as blocking . . . garbage collection, building entries and Access-A-Ride services,” wrote board Chairman David Gruber.
Residents say the kiosk blocked the 20-story building’s entrance, snarled rush-hour traffic, made it harder for sanitation trucks to pick up garbage — and was placed across the street from where a planning map originally positioned it.
But the city insists the case can’t be handled in court.
“DOT decisions as to the sites of individual bike-share stations on public streets and sidewalks are nonjusticiable,” O’Sullivan claimed in court papers filed on July 1.
She also called the rights of residents of the 137-unit co-op “no greater than that of the general public,” and compared DOT’s purview over bike-share docks to its decisions about alternate-side parking and converting a public park into a parking lot.
Shore countered in court documents filed on July 25 that judges have overturned city decisions about similar issues, such as changing traffic patterns around Police Headquarters and converting a public park into a parking lot.
“Nobody is above the law,” he told The Post. “They’re also subject to the courts’ scrutiny.”