About 35 Ballard residents gathered last week to discuss possible improvements to 14th Avenue Northwest, a heavily used street that has caused many of the nearby residents concern over its safety and aesthetic value to the neighborhood.

Many of the people who attended the meeting at St. Alphonsus Parish School last Wednesday live near 14th and have for years discussed their concerns regarding the 100-foot wide, mile long section of the street that runs from the ship canal to Ballard High School. This was the first public meeting to discuss a plan of action.

Peter Locke, one of the first to suggest an organized plan for the street, helped plan and coordinate the meeting. His message was clear: It will take a lot of time and volunteer commitment to form a vision and implement a plan to transform 14th Avenue Northwest into something the community can be proud of.

"A lot can be done to add beauty and value to the street," said Locke at the beginning of the meeting. "But it 's going to take a lot of hard work and commitment."

He called the one-mile stretch a "diverse area" and even a "microcosm of Ballard as a whole," noting the many different cultures, age groups and businesses in the area.

Locke stressed that if improvements to 14th were to be a success; the whole community should be involved with the planning and envisioning ideas for the street.

"There needs to be room for everyone's ideas and concerns," he said.

Locke first started thinking about possible improvements to 14th eight years ago when he moved into the neighborhood.

"I live on the corner of 14th and 61st and experience the issues first hand daily," he said. "Besides being an eyesore and dangerous, it always seemed like a tremendous waste of a valuable resource."

Many at the meeting spoke about traffic barreling down 14th and said they had concerns for the safety of their children and pedestrians.

Robert Brown, an active member of the movement to fix 14th, talked about progress already underway by him and a few other neighbors who are gathering statistics on traffic speed on 14th Avenue.

In August, volunteers borrowed a radar gun from the city to record, on average, how fast drivers were driving on the street. The speed limit there is 25 miles per hour.

Brown said the data they collected showed about half of the drivers were speeding, and of the speeders, most were going around 33 miles per hour. Not as bad as they had perceived, he said. The next step is to get a few more sets of numbers at different times of the year for a more accurate account, he said.

On Oct. 13, a speed trailer will be positioned between 14th and 61st to show drivers how fast they are going in hopes it will slow their speed. Eventually, Brown said, they would like to get law enforcement involved and set up speed traps along 14th Avenue.

Other concerns included unexplained vehicles parked for days, lack of median upkeep, "mammoth potholes," broken curbs and, as one resident put it, the "butt ugliness" of the street in general.

Locke and Brown also introduced their plan to apply for a Department of Neighborhoods Small and Simple Matching Funds grant. The grant would help support the efforts of an urban planner, which, combined with many public meetings, could create a realistic plan that would meet the needs of all parts of the community, said Locke.

Anindita Mitra, a Whittier Heights resident and urban planner with CREA Affiliates Planning and Design Firm, spoke about similar projects she has worked on, including a city park she helped design in Springfield, Mo., that took more than five years to complete from the vision to the implementation, and the Sixth Avenue Pocket Park in the Whittier Heights neighborhood that was a 10-year effort on the part of resident volunteers and planners. That park opened this past May.

Sam Star, from Ballard non-profit Groundswell Northwest, a group that seeks to create more open space in northwest Seattle, also offered an example of the commitment and time that goes into these types of projects. He spoke about the Salmon Bay School Sports Field project that has been five years in the making and is scheduled to open this October.

"Transforming 14th will take years," he warned. "This grant is just your first step. You can think about a master plan, but you're gonna have to break it down into bite-size pieces. I don't want to be discouraging, just realistic."

Locke explained the $15,000 matching funds grant, if approved, would need to be matched with $7,500 in either in-kind donations (food, drinks, supplies), volunteer work at $15 an hour per person, and even professional services donated by planners at their billing rate. He also suggested asking university and high school students from architecture classes to get involved with the planning and design aspect.

At that rate, the money would add up fast, he said.

But the overall message seemed clear- - this was to be the first meeting of many in a process that could take years. And whatever the final plan for 14th Avenue will be, it seems the residents have a long road ahead.