WASHINGTON —When the Trump administration announced plans to remove the 15th Street NW protected bike lane ahead of this summer’s America 250 celebrations, cyclists who ride it daily had one question: where does that leave them?

For Jen McCabe, a car-free D.C. commuter who bikes the 15th Street corridor to teaching jobs across the city, the federal government’s rationale — that removing the lane would ease traffic for hundreds of thousands of visitors — never added up.

“The car backup is caused by cars getting on to 395,” McCabe said. “So even if you opened up more throughput on 15th Street as you approach the Tidal Basin, those cars will still sit there, unless there are changes coming to 395 also. I don’t see how it solves anything.”

A 2026 evaluation by the D.C. Department of Transportation found that since the lane opened in 2021, all roadway crashes along the corridor fell 46%, bicycle injury crashes dropped 91%, and traffic speeds through the area actually increased by 17% during peak hours. Travel times even saw positive change, with northbound travel time down 36 seconds and southbound down 40 seconds.

The Federal Highway Administration had argued the opposite in its move to remove the bike lanes. A spokesperson for the FWHA said the 0.75-mile lane “dramatically reduced roadway capacity” and that removing it was “essential to improve traffic flow” ahead of America250 events. 

Aisha Cohen, an urban planner who worked on the 15th Street project with DDOT and the National Park Service, said the lane changed the entire character of the 15th Street corridor. 

“Before the intervention of putting the bike lane, 15th Street as a corridor — with no segmentation of where the different bus riders, scooter riders, pedestrians, vendors, where they all go — that led to over 200 crashes in about a five-year span,” Cohen said.

Cohen said the bike lane is one piece of a much larger ecosystem of cycling infrastructure the District has spent years building. This network includes Capital Bikeshare stations, e-bike voucher programs and dedicated cycling education programs for children.

“You knock out the second grader program or the bike lanes or the fun groups for adults or any of that,” Cohen said. “This carefully built network starts to wobble.”

The Washington Area Bicyclist Association filed suit against the Interior Department in late March, seeking to permanently stop the removal. The department had been overseeing the effort through the National Park Service and the Federal Highway Administration. On April 22 — one day before demolition crews were set to arrive — U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson sided with WABA.

In a 61-page ruling, Jackson found NPS and the FHWA had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously,” skipping the required safety reviews and failing to prove removal would actually improve traffic. The judge noted that while the administration challenged the methodology of DDOT’s before-and-after study, it submitted no data of its own to contradict it.

For Cohen, the ruling was a vindication of the basic requirements of public infrastructure planning.

“Every public process needs a public hearing,” Cohen said. “There’s a clear through-line between the public input from a diverse range of stakeholders and the technical analysis.”

Connor Walsh, a George Washington University student who has cycled in D.C. for four years, said the community that uses the lane most was never consulted. 

“There’s so many people in D.C. who bike,” Walsh said. “If you get out on any bike lane you’re going to see a bunch of people. I think they really need to see what the public thinks and get their input, because it’s one of the main corridors that you can get across the mall with.”

Judge Jackson’s ruling stopped short of a permanent ban. The federal government can still pursue removal, but it must first conduct the public process and safety review it bypassed the first time. The administration has also not ruled out an appeal.

McCabe said the broader stakes go beyond one street.

“That decision seems to be moving us in the wrong direction, in fact, the exact opposite direction of where we should be headed,” McCabe said. “Any opportunity to eliminate car traffic is better for the environment, better for the people who are walking around D.C. The air quality is better.”

NPS and the FHWA did not respond to requests for comment. 

The Washington Area Bicyclist Association is pushing for a permanent injunction, but with Freedom250 events set to begin this summer, the fight over 15th Street may not be over.