Justia Transportation Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs, two national trade associations representing the private charter bus industry, challenged Senator Patty Murray's amendment to the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-117, 172, related to charter bus services, alleging that the amendment ensured that the Federal Transit Act, 49 U.S.C. 5323(d)(1) ("Charter Rule"), could not spend appropriated funds to enforce the Charter Rule to bar King County Metro ("KCM") from providing bus service to Seattle Mariners games in Fiscal Year 2010. At issue was whether Congress could constitutionally permit a federally-subsidized transit system to take the residents of Seattle out to the ball game. The court held that Congress could and that the amendment was not unconstitutional where it did not violate plaintiffs' First Amendment right to petition, Fifth Amendment right to equal protection, procedural due process rights under the Fifth Amendment, or separation of powers principles. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was reversed. View "American Bus Assoc. v. Rogoff, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs sued defendants, Nassau County, New York and/or MTA Long Island Bus ("MTA"), asserting claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq., and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. 701 et seq., where the gravamen of the lawsuits was that defendants implemented substantial reductions in paratransit services without allowing for the public participation of users of the services required by the ADA regulations and failed to make reasonable modifications to existing services so as to ameliorate the effect of the service reductions. At issue was whether the district court properly dismissed plaintiffs' cases on the grounds that the regulations did not apply to the service cuts in question and that the Department of Justice's ("DOJ") reasonable modifications requirement did not apply to paratransit services. The court held that 49 C.F.R. 37.137(c) of the ADA could not be enforced in a private right of action based on 49 C.F.R. 12143 where the failure to permit public participation did not constitute discrimination under section 12143. The court also read section 12134 to mean that the DOJ's reasonable modifications regulations did not apply to public entities providing paratransit services outside the ADA service area. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' cases.