New York Local News

NEW YORK (AP) ― It has been four years since the Republicans staged their national convention in Manhattan, but the experience is fresh on the minds of bicyclists who say they are still getting a bumpy ride from police.

With a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, the Five Borough Bicycle Club is fighting new Police Department rules that the cyclists say were drawn up to retaliate against people participating in Critical Mass, a monthly ride that sometimes draws hundreds of two-wheelers to busy city streets.

The regulations, adopted last year, require groups of 50 people or more traveling together on a public way to get a parade permit from the police department.

The legal fight is the latest in a string that began during the 2004 Republican National Convention, when police arrested more than 260 cyclists during a Critical Mass ride.

The city settled an earlier lawsuit by five bicyclists who said their First Amendment rights were violated during the roundup. They were among 40 people who had their bikes seized by police when they went off a planned parade route.

Since then, the tension between police and the cyclists has persisted. It was illustrated again in July when an amateur video caught an officer body-checking a man off a bike during a Critical Mass ride through Times Square.

The city has demanded that the cyclists apply for a permit for the monthly journeys, saying police need to plan for traffic disruptions. Critical Mass participants have refused.

On its web site, the Five Borough Bicycle Club, which organizes about 250 group rides each year, accuses the city of harassing riders by citing them for nonsense offenses, like riding without a seat belt, or arresting them for no valid reason.

Last Tuesday, the cyclists asked a federal judge to order the city to turn over documents that might explain the rationale for the 2007 change to the city's parade rules. The city's response is due next Friday. The city said it wants to submit declarations from a high ranking police official and someone at the mayor's office.

The city has already revised its new parade rules once to address concerns by federal judges. A federal judge has also ruled that constitutional rights to free speech and travel are not violated by the city's regulation of mass bicycle rides.

Gabriel Taussig, a chief lawyer for the city, said the city is not retaliating against bicyclists.

"The reality is the regulations did not expressly refer to bicycles," he said. "The court felt that needed to be made clear and that's what we did."

It is estimated that as many as 120,000 people ride bicycles through city streets each day.

Critical Mass bike rides started in San Francisco in 1992. Two years later, they began in New York. Now, they take place around the world on the last Friday of every month to assert cyclists' rights and to protest urban areas' reliance on motor vehicles.

The rides became so large in New York around the time of the convention that police decided to crack down, leading to the mass sweep during a ride days before the GOP convention in 2004.

Dozens more cyclists have been arrested at subsequent rallies.

On Friday night, Critical Mass took to the streets in Manhattan once more.

Barbara Ross, a regular Critical Mass participant, said the rides were growing in popularity because of police resistance and Mayor Michael Bloomberg's "expensive, unnecessary and dangerous campaign against group bicycle rides and nonpolluting transportation since 2004."

She said she hopes public pressure will convince the city to "return to the more sensible police tactics used prior to the Republican National Convention."

(© 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

• Go! New York For A Healthy Lifestyle
• Got Wit? Play CBS 2's Caption Game!
• 20 Questions
• Celebrities On Twitter
• Celebrity Real Names Revealed
• When It Was Out To Be Out
• Hilarious Movie Blunders
• World's Coolest Fighter Jets