Williamsburg Businesses Lobby MTA To Stop L Shutdown
Remember how there’s going to be no weekend L train between Brooklyn and Manhattan for six weeks? Oh yes, just as you are ready to throw that peacoat in storage for six months and frolic outside (read: mid-April), it will be that much more difficult to get out of the borough. That’s a problem for us mortals just trying to get eggs with friends on the weekend, but it’s much worse for Williamsburg businesses, who depend on the weekend influx of Manhattanites. So several business owners are petitioning the L to postpone the six-weekend shutdown so they can get on their feet after a tough winter.
“Spring is like the height — that’s the peak,” Joseph Franquinha, owner of Crest Hardware and Urban Garden Center, told DNA Info. “That’s when a lot of the people get out of the red from a very tough January, February, March. April is really go time. To transport the humans here, the L train is our main artery. You cut off this artery, you’re cutting off our livelihood.”
So far the online petition has 142 signatures. But odds are not amazing that the MTA will listen because, well, when does the MTA ever listen to anyone?