At the Ballard District Council last night, three proposed Neighborhood Park Street Fund projects were selected to move forward to Seattle Department of Transportation's cost and feasibility phase.

Neighborhood Park Street Fund projects can be valued up to $90,000, are funded by approximately $1.2 million set aside in the 2013 city budget and are selected by the community themselves. In the case of Ballard, the Ballard District Council serves as the governing body to help select which projects move forward. Last night, five groups made presentations and three were selected.

The first one would improve pedestrian safety at 11th Ave NW and NW Market St. While the speaker Todd Gehman said they had no specific request, he said that they hoped for something that would increase pedestrian safety, such as signage, an overhead crosswalk signal or a half-signal. EBCA's Dawn Hemminger said that they would trust the officials at SDOT to know what would be best.

Second is at Kirke Park, where a rain garden along the streetside would provide a barrier between cars and pedestrians and would create a more inclusive park feeling for those walking on the sidewalk.

"By adding this in we’re not losing any parking," said Alyssa Smith, the speaker for the project. "As far as green stuff it will catch storm water that will go down the hill."

According to Joe Wert of the Olympic Manor Community Club, some neighbors have complained that they already cannot back out of their driveways and are concerned the added rain gardens, which are narrow, would make the situation worse.

However, Smith, who also lives right by the park, said backing out isn't a problem. She said she has a big van and that she can back out with four bikes on the back -- albeit, maybe a bit slowly, because it's a van with four bikes on the back.

“It hasn’t posed an issue for me," she said.

In addition, the curb outside the park is yellow and people assume they can't park there. According to Smith, it turns out that's because the old man who lived in the house on the site before didn't want anybody coming near him and had painted the curb yellow himself, meaning the yellow paint is not city-sanctioned.

Finally, the third project would be pedestrian safety improvements to Holman Rd at 13th Ave NW. Kirk Robbins of the 36th District Republicans presented the project. He said they wanted to put a rail along the sidewalk so that there is a barrier between pedestrians and the street. In addition, he said residents around the area believed there needed to be further pedestrian improvements due to the busy nature of the street.

"We think there’s need for pedestrian improvements around that intersection, and similar to the Market St. folks, we don’t know what it is," Robbins said. "No way an overpass thing is going to happen. It’s just too expensive, and quite frankly it’s hard to accomplish.”

Robbins also mentioned that because of the RapidRide D stop, there has been more pedestrian activity and thus more need.

Wert said he had looked around the area recently and that there was a big gap in grade-level crosswalks between Mary Ave and 6th Ave NW.

“Literally there’s 7/10 of a mile there without a crosswalk,” he said. (We don't know the exact distance of the gap.)

Here's the timeline of events for the Neighborhood Park Street Fund process:

2/4/2013: Application deadline.

February/March: Neighborhood District Councils review applications.

Early April: Neighborhood District Councils forward top 3 projects to SDOT/Parks for feasibility review and initial cost estimates.

Early June: SDOT/Parks return project feasibility reviews and cost estimates to Neighborhood District Councils.

June, July: Neighborhood District Councils review and submit final project rankings to DON.

September: DON notifies applicants of award/no award project status. Project award recommendations are included in Mayor’s proposed budget.

November: City Council considers recommendations and adopts 2014 budget.

December: DON announces final project awards.

2014: Project implementation.

Zachariah Bryan can be reached at zachb@robinsonnews.com

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