On Nov. 12, city officials unveiled results from citywide surveys taken this summer to reflect Neighborhood Plan updates.

Transportation issues and public safety appealed to many people as an area where changes could be made to the new Ballard and Crown Hill plan.

For one resident living in Crown Hill, it was the simple things that matter the most.

“I told my wife I almost wore a t-shirt that said give me sidewalks or give me death,” said Patrick Trainor, a Crown Hill resident. “There’s kids walking to school and they have to walk in peoples’ yards.”

Since the last Neighborhood Plan, Ballard and Crown Hill residents reported progress on several fronts.

Respondents generally appreciated redevelopment in downtown Ballard, the new library and the Farmer’s Market.

City planners said they will use the “likes” and “dislikes” culled from the populace to determine goals for the next Neighborhood Plans.

Ballard and Crown Hill, however, might not make the cut for Neighborhood Plan updates during late 2010, said Ashley Harris, a volunteer for the Neighborhood Plan Advisory Committee, a group of volunteers coordinating efforts between the city and its neighborhoods.

The first neighborhoods to receive plan updates might be along new light rail routes, which counts out Ballard, for the moment. While campaigning, Mayor-elect Mike McGinn promised to work toward bringing light rail to Ballard within two years of taking office.

During the Nov. 12 meeting at North Seattle Community College, the city revealed a board of more or less verbatim quotes from respondents to the citywide surveys.

Each quote served as a representation of the trends that city officials discovered as they sifted through more than 5,000 responses citywide.

Ballard and Crown Hill had more than 900 people respond to the survey – double the number of respondents in other neighborhoods and easily dwarfing the 50 respondents from the University District.

“It’s a pretty tight-knit community people are involved in," Harris said. "And, there’s a pretty high readership of My Ballard and the Ballard News Tribune.”

Some asked whether or not this level of participation might place Ballard and Crown Hill in position to receive a plan update sooner rather than later. The answers seems to be no.

But, even this presumed idea might be “up in the air” because McGinn could change criteria for drafting updated Neighborhood Plans once he takes office.