A federal judge yesterday rejected a request by anti-war groups protesting President Bush’s inauguration that the public be allowed to line the motorcade route during tomorrow’s inaugural parade.

After an hour-long hearing in Washington, Judge Paul Friedman ruled from the bench that the protesters had not met the criteria for an emergency injunction.

A Justice Department official who attended the session said Judge Friedman opined that reallocating space along Pennsylvania Avenue just two days before the inauguration would be too disruptive.

“He found the public interest was not served by a preliminary injunction,” said the official, who asked not to be named. “At the 11th hour, there would be harm to the government and perhaps to other parties if the settled expectations were upset.”

A lawyer for the protesters, Carl Messineo, agreed that the short timeframe hurt their case. “The clock had wound down and we’re a day and a half away, which made it difficult,” he said. “We’re disappointed with the decision.”

According to Mr. Messineo, Judge Friedman acknowledged that the government was partly responsible for the last-minute nature of the dispute. “He said the government had given shifting rationales, had not been straightforward in dealing with the demonstrators,” Mr. Messineo said.

Mr. Messineo said an immediate appeal is unlikely, but he vowed to seek redress for the protesters after the inauguration.

The National Park Service has grant ed protesters a permit to occupy nine sites in downtown Washington. However, the group coordinating the demonstrations, the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Coalition, or A.N.S.W.E.R., complained that only one of the sites is directly contiguous with the inaugural parade route.

The demonstrators said the Park Service violated their First Amendment rights by allocating only 215 feet of space along the route for protests, while the Presidential Inaugural Committee was granted 5,600 feet of space. The tickets required to enter the committee’s space are only being sold to people who provide an invitation number.

Most of the eight other demonstration sites are behind walls or bleachers erected for the inauguration, Mr. Messineo charged. “The dissent is going to be pushed off to the side,” he said.

“It’s in some dispute as to how good or not their space is,” the Justice Department official said.

A Pennsylvania man whose son was kidnapped and murdered in Iraq was among those challenging the protest restrictions. According to court papers, Michael Berg, the father of Nicholas Berg, plans to attend the inaugural parade with a sign reading, “Our Children Died for the Sins of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld.”

Also joining the court challenge were the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation and the National Council of Arab Americans.

Similar court challenges over protesters’ access to the inauguration were brought in 1997 and 2001. In the 1997 case, brought by anti-abortion demonstrators, a federal appeals court ruled that protesters cannot be excluded from the entirety of the parade route.