To Whom It May Concern:
I am the Proprietor of Washington Transmissions Inc. Our repair shop has been on Washington Avenue for over forty years. We have seen a lot of changes in this neighborhood over the years.
The Vanderbilt Open Streets and Underhill conversion has made it harder for us to do business. We repair cars. Our customers come from all over and have been with us for decades, generations. We even have intergenerational clients. We have been here a while. We do good business. People come back. We do good work and have a good reputation. Traffic makes it frustrating for our customers to get to us.
Our mechanics drive to work. I come from Queens and the rest come from all over Brooklyn. One of us comes from Coney Island on public transportation and it is horrible. A bus to a train to the 45 bus- sometimes she has waited 45 minutes for a bus and is late to work.
We have cars moving in and out all day. At certain hours of the day it is dangerous to reverse out onto Washington Ave due to the hectic traffic situation, much worsened by Vanderbilt Open Streets and Underhill conversion. There are buses rerouted from Vanderbilt coming down our block impeding access to our shop. There is a lot of double parking, rerouted buses, and stalled buses (they get stuck). We have to use more street parking those days because we can’t back a vehicle out the driveway because the additional overflows come down this block and it is a lot of traffic.
We also run a Uhaul business. Not every Uhaul here belongs to us. We have lots of people moving to Brooklyn from all over the country and they feel it is convenient to drop their Uhauls here. The company offers overnight parking and off site return. We close at five. There is a keybox on the fence. So as long as they do legal street parking they are good. We usually try to have the vans backed up into the lot. In the summer there are massive amounts of people coming and they can’t all fit in our lot. Then we have to do street parking. We can’t park on Underhill anymore due to the changes. People usually move on a Friday or Saturday. To have traffic restricted on those days is really hard.
Saturday is our busiest day. Our customers work during the week and Saturday is when they have time to get their cars fixed or pick up a Uhaul.
These changes affect our ability to thrive as a business here on Washington Ave as we have for decades. We respectfully ask that you limit Open Streets and return Underhill to be a regular street. Hardly any bikers use Vanderbilt anyhow, it is an overreach in my opinion.
Thank you.