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@CrossingBrroklynFerry:

If there were any other claims the plaintiffs made that the judge cited as needing time to answer, please provide a cite. 

On page 2 of his August 2016 decision, the judge notes that he was granting the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment "in part," based on the ridership issues; that he was ordering the preparation of an SEIS; and that he would "reserve judgment as to the remaining issues." Then, in his November 2016 decision, he modified his previous order to allow FTA to determine, in the first instance, whether they thought the ridership issues merited an SEIS and that if they did not think an SEIS was warranted, he directed the parties to file additional briefing on that question. The parties have now done that. So now, the court has to issue a "final, final" decision that addresses whether FTA's decision not to prepare an SEIS was arbitrary or capricious, as well as resolves all the other claims that the plaintiffs' have raised and as to which the court had earlier "reserve[d] judgment."

@Falls Church: 

I'm not saying a judge couldn't ever have a conflict of interest based on where he lives, or that a judge's spouse's connections to a case couldn't ever arguably present a conflict of interest. I'm saying (as the WaPo article discusses) that there was no reasonable basis for concluding either of those things about the judge overseeing the PL case, or his spouse. And when people attack judges based on specious claims of conflict (or based on irrelevant claims about race, national origin, gender, etc.), rather than on facts based in reality, that fosters distrust in the judicial system, which hampers our democracy.

@drumz: