All posts by dennis

Transportation

Transit Survey

bdc

King County Metro Transit made big changes to many of its bus routes on September 29th, 2012. They made these changes after much public consultation. Most changes to routes and schedules were a response to the introduction of the Rapid Ride C and D lines providing service from West Seattle to Downtown Seattle, and Ballard to Downtown Seattle via Queen Anne. This is a Ballard District Council led initiative to determine whether these changes have made it easier or harder to use public transit. Some people feel their commute or other use of the bus system has been impaired, while others feel the changes have been an improvement. This is not designed as a scientific survey, but an opportunity to see whether or not the service is improved over what it was.

Participation in this survey is completely voluntary. The information collected will be tabulated and used for transit planning discussions for Ballard and in discussions with Metro Transit. The survey is open until Jan 31, 2013

To add your voice, please visit:

tinyurl.com/BallardTransit

Crime/Emergency

Free First Aid training for Ballard and Crown Hill Residents

The Ballard Prepares team, with funding from a Seattle Department of Neighborhoods Small and Simple grant, is offering free emergency first aid training to the first 90 people in the Ballard area (this includes Crown Hill) to apply. The Ballard Prepares team advises that “the objective is to have 90 additional people who live or work in our community trained to be able to respond in an emergency.”

The course requires two online components to be completed before the one time, in-person training at the Crown Hill Center on January 26th from 9am-2pm.

The online components include blood-borne pathogens, and first aid. The in-class component will include CPR and the use of AEDs.

If you’re interested, please complete this form and email to ballardprepares@gmail.com. The first 90 people will receive directions to log into the online training course.

In exchange for this opportunity, Ballard Prepares asks that you make a commitment of being available to respond in your community to emergencies.

Application:  BallardPreparesEnrollmentForm.docx

 

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Break-ins in the Neighborhood

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Monday and today we’ve had a few break-ins and thefts of houses in Crown Hill. The first burglaries were Monday, near 12th and 90th:

We had a break in yesterday. They climbed in the second story window and stole our tv as well as my jewelry. They also broke into our neighbors house and stole her jewelry.

This morning another residential burglary near 13th and 95th:

It looks like they were watching the house because they broke in right after we left this morning.  They shimmied open a window on the side of the house and got in that way, but then set off the alarm when they opened the patio door to get things out.  They stole our 42″ plasma TV and had some other things stuffed into bags, but left the bags behind (probably because they were not expecting the alarm to go off).  We’re going through the house now to see if anything else is missing.

 We did call the police and filed a report with them, and we’re adding more sensors to our windows so that the alarm will go off if a window is tampered with.  There shouldn’t have been any cars other than ours […] in our driveway this morning ….
Here are some tips to get everybody into security mode:
  1. Terrie Johnston is the Neighborhood Crime Prevention Coordinator for the North Precinct. I don’t know for sure how much longer she will be there. She sends out updates probably once a month. She can come to a block watch organization meeting, and she has done security checkups for both homes and businesses. terrie.johnston@seattle.gov or 206-684-7711.
  2. Probably good to have a quick meeting in someone’s back yard. Start exchanging phone nos, getting to know everyone.
  3. Report all suspicious activity when it is happening. Report it to 911. The 911 operators will triage the calls and dispatch an officer if one is available. Far better than voice mail at the non-emergency number. Per Terrie Johnston and Scott McGlashan presentations, if you are not sure if something is suspicious, it is suspicious.
  4. Secure windows and doors
  5. Lights on for porches.
  6. Motion sensing lights
  7. Keep ladders locked up
  8. If door knock is heard, always respond verbally (but don’t open door if you don’t know / expect). If person runs away, or otherwise odd, call 911
  9. Last I heard security cams were a mixed blessing in that they might be a target of theft, but see this thread on MyBallard forum for a different perspective. SPD caught the burglar based on the evidence provided by the video: http://www.myballard.com/forum/topic.php?id=14239

In terms of recovering from the theft:

  1. If house or car keys or garage door remotes are missing, the burglar(s) may be back. Beware and take appropriate action if any of these are missing.