Cheryl Smith is the heart and soul of Cheryl's Global Soul in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

But Smith, who opened her namesake soul food restaurant 17 years ago, says her business is already suffering due to a half-finished project by the city's Department of Transportation.

“There’s no place to park. They’ve eliminated a bunch of parking that was legit,” Smith said. “People can’t even pull over to go into the deli to pop in and out, and if they double park, it makes this whole street like, just an obstacle course.”

This past summer, the DOT began installing the Underhill Avenue bike boulevard, a street redesign intended to calm traffic in Prospect Heights. But the project came to a standstill in the fall, after resistance from some residents and business owners.

“They’re not serving our neighborhood right now by changing the direction of the street two times, by taking away parking, by taking away the ability for someone to pull over to the curb,” Smith said. “All that kind of stuff, it seems poorly thought out.”

The bike boulevard spans eight blocks of Underhill Avenue, from Pacific Street to Eastern Parkway. What was once a two-way street is now one-way between Park Place and Bergen Street. 

The DOT also installed diamond-shaped traffic diverters and parking-protected bike lanes on the one-way streets.

“The fact that they took it to another level of changing the direction of the streets and adding lanes that don’t make sense or diamonds in places, you know, I have never seen anything like this before,” Smith said.

An elementary school is also located on the bike boulevard. Parents say they support the redesign, and are frustrated with the pause.

“I love the bike lane and the one-way street, because it sort of slows down traffic and makes it a lot easier to drop off and pick up both on bike and car,” parent Justin VanWormer said. “I wish they would just finish painting it.”

Parent Barbara Siminovich said the “diamonds that they put over there actually make things more complicated.”

The DOT posted these signs along Underhill Avenue in the fall, encouraging residents to fill out a survey and provide feedback on the bike boulevard. 

A spokesperson for the DOT said the agency continues to review the survey and in-person feedback.