Photo by Jack McKay

The road has been closed to vehicular traffic since 1991, but a protracted legal battle over the future of Klingle Road has raged over the years between residents who want it reopened to cars and those who would rather see it converted to a hiker-biker trail.

As we wrote last week, the latter argument finally seems to have won—a federal judge declined to step in and stop a 2008 D.C. Council decision to turn Klingle Road into a path for hiking and cycling, seemingly bringing to an end the two-decade-old fight over what to do with the roadway.

The Examiner reports that with the bickering behind them, the D.C. Department of Transportation will be able to start work on the hiker-biker trail in 2014 and hopefully wrap up a year later. The cost of the project has ballooned in the years since the council make the decision and the work will actually start, though—it jumped from $8 million to $11 million.

Still, as the Post’s Mike DeBonis reports, opponents of the plan can’t seem to take the defeat as a hint that maybe they should call off their longshot campaign:

Eleanor Oliver, a co-plaintiff and longtime Cleveland Park resident, said she’s still willing to fight against what she called “a little vasectomy” to the city transportation network.

“I think there are further legal options,” she said. “But perhaps the judge is right — go back to the council.. . . We’re going to get so choked with traffic they’re going to have to open it up.”

It’s still unclear why the area would get choked up with traffic now, especially seeing as not one soul has driven on Klingle Road in 20 years and the trafficmageddon has so far been averted.