May 2007

Thanks for your story in the Ballard News Tribune on transportation. I live in Magnolia, but spotted the story (on your Website).

I'm the Technical Director of Coalition for Effective Transportation Alternatives, www.effectivetransportation.org.

Please let me comment on a few of your paragraphs:

" 'Ever since voters failed to pass two proposals for underground rail in the early 1970s, the county is digging itself out of a 35-year auto dependency hole,' said Phillips.

I wish more people knew of the advantages of using our Metro transit buses for local transportation.

For over 50 years the local buses have taken me downtown to shop and to my work place. It has been a pleasant and rewarding experience.

I have missed stress from heavy traffic, accidents and lack of parking space. The bus always let me off just a few blocks from where I worked or shopped. I started my day with sightseeing and exercise.

I have been able to see and enjoy the various parts of the city - often with a camera in hand.

It is amazing given the amount of money spent to convince voters to vote against the elevated transportation solution for Seattle, that well over 40 percent voted to rebuild the elevated. If the retrofit folk had also voted for the rebuild, that would have raised it over 50 percent and we could have looked at retrofit as compromise rather than to the unworkable surface street/transit inanity. Given the hourglass shape of the city, there is no room for a wider street grid for dispersing traffic as there is in Chicago.

I would like to thank the Ballard News-Tribune for the story on White Cane Days. Our goal was to collect $2,200. The Ballard community gave generously and we collected approximately $2,200 in front of Fred Meyer's, Safeway, Ballard Market and Tully's across from Bergen square and Ray's boathouse. Many people who donated mentioned seeing the article.

In addition, $135 was collected from people who saw the article and sent money directly.

With new mills opening monthly along Salmon Bay in the early 1890s the community grew rapidly. An embryo business district was developing along Ballard Ave. The sounds of sawing and hammering were heard seven days a week as small neat houses were quickly put up.

In 1888 the dominant development venture, the West Coast Improvement Co., had platted the land along Salmon Bay as Gilman Park. In the summer of 1889, the idea of incorporating the town of Gilman Park was the "hot topic" of the community.

The bumper stickers and T-shirts that read "Free Ballard" are a novelty to some, something to pick up as a souvenir from your visit to that cute little Scandinavian neighborhood with all the chic boutiques and trendy restaurants on the outskirts of an industrial core.

But many, especially new residents, don't know that the genesis of what has become one of Ballard's most famous motto's actually grew out of the same kind of controversies that surrounded the annexation debate 100 years ago.

The "Free Ballard" slogan was born in 2002 at a time when there was a lot of dissati

St. Alphonsus Parish School, located in the heart of Ballard on15th Avenue Northwest, will celebrate a century of providing children with a Catholic education this fall.

The same year Ballard was annexed into the City of Seattle in 1907, area Catholics celebrated the opening of their parochial school.

The school's Century Committee is planning a celebratory Mass and reception, with Archbishop Alexander Brunett presiding, at 10 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 23.

Ballard acquired its name as a matter of chance.

Indeed, the name was literally the result of a flip of a coin along with a 1880s nickname for a train stop. Before it became Ballard, the little community on Salmon Bay was known for about a year as Gilman Park as a result of the activities of the West Coast Improvement Co., the leading local land development enterprise.

William Rankin Ballard, the town's namesake, came west at age 11 with his family in 1858.

The summer of 1887 stands as a turning point in the early history of Ballard for that was when a number of parties joined forces to form the West Coast Improvement Company - the enterprise that "sold Gilman Park" that, in turn, directly led to the incorporation of the City of Ballard.

For Julie Pleasant-Albright it was when they moved The Red Door Alehouse in Fremont. For Margaret Anderson it started when there was no longer angle parking on Market Street. Others cited when Ballard was written up in The New York Times or when the Second Saturday Artwalks began. Just as Seattle seemed to be protected from the outside world by the myth of constant rain, so too was Ballard long protected by its reputation as a sleepy Scandinavian enclave.