Editor's Note. This letter was addressed to Grace Crunican, director of the Seattle Department of Transportation with a copy to the Ballard New-Tribune.

I am writing to urge the Seattle Department of Transportation to abandon the proposed changes to 24th Avenue Northwest and Stone Way that involve reducing the four motor vehicle travel lanes.

Ballard, Fremont and Wallingford still need relatively smooth access for trucks delivering to the various industrial businesses that operate in those neighborhoods - for now, that is. If it grows more and more difficult for these businesses - which provide local, family-wage jobs to our citizens - to operate within Seattle, they will leave this area, taking their jobs and city sales taxes with them.

A version of this "road diet" was recently applied to 50th Street from Greenlake Way to the entrance of I5. Instead of traffic intermittently slowing down to allow a car in the left hand lane to make a left turn, the center turn lane now sits empty while the traffic traveling east to the entrance of I5 is a parking lot, and there aren't even any bike lanes on this street. The "improvements" solved nothing and created more gridlock.

A better plan for 24th Avenue Northwest and Stone Way is to increase the visibility of the existing crosswalks by adding streetlights above the crosswalks and light strips and high visibility markings to the crosswalks themselves. Perhaps the Department of Transportation could also work with the Seattle Police Department to fine anyone $1,000, bicyclist or motorist, who does not signal before a turn or who does not come to a full stop once a pedestrian enters the crosswalk, or turns in front of a pedestrian or runs a red light.

The City of Seattle and the Department of Transportation continue to try to get us out of our cars and trucks without providing a viable alternative. In effect, they tell us to "go jump" without giving us anywhere to jump to. How are businesses in these neighborhoods going to get goods and services efficiently - on a bus? (As an aside, it takes an hour and 15 minutes, in the dead of night, on a Sunday to travel by bus from downtown Seattle to Ballard after you are on the bus.)

It seems the city and the Department of Transportation thinks that if you "unbuild" it, the drivers won't come. Certainly the industrial businesses will no longer come. Their places will be taken over by coffee shops or boutiques selling $300 pairs of blue jeans and paying their employees minimum wage (but plus counter tips!) Welcome to the urban village.

Toni Cross

Ballard