A judge on Tuesday dismissed an effort by Brooklyn residents to remove a hotly contested bicycle lane installed by the city on Prospect Park West, in one of the most closely watched controversies over a signature policy of the Bloomberg administration.

The decision represented a significant victory for the city and its transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, whose campaign to create streets more oriented to pedestrians and bicyclists has divided New Yorkers and prompted a fierce political debate.

The judge, Bert A. Bunyan of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, found that the residents’ lawsuit was filed after the statute of limitations had expired for a legal challenge to the lane, a mile-long, two-way path installed last summer along one of Brooklyn’s wealthiest boulevards.

The plaintiffs, a pair of well-connected civic groups in Brooklyn with ties to Iris Weinshall, a former city transportation commissioner, had accused the city’s Transportation Department of cherry-picking statistics to create a favorable portrait of the lane and misleading residents about its benefits. The judge’s decision did not address those claims or the merits of the lane itself.