Beacon Hill Seattle

Families at Kimball Elementary brought home this urgent notice yesterday. Other area families will want to know too.

"On the morning of Monday, June 2, a car approached one of our students while she was waiting for her bus near Beacon Hill Elementary. A man asked her to get into the car. The Kimball student did the right thing. She didn't talk to the man and she stayed far away from the car, and ran to her home. Seattle Police and Seattle Public School Security have been notified. Heightened security will be present around the school bus stop areas early in the morning. ... [T]ake the time to talk with your children about staying safe, and walking in pairs. Children should be supervised by parents as they are going to and from school."

We were lucky enough to get a front-row seat for the breakthrough of the tunnel boring machine at the eastern portal of Sound Transit's light rail tunnel through Beacon Hill. A video with the most exciting portions of the nearly 30-minute long event is attached above (double-click the player to see the higher-resolution version).

Although the Central District has pretty good bus service, so far we've been mostly overlooked in the planning for high-capacity, high-speed transit service. It would be fantastic if we had a subway stop that could get people to and from downtown in just 4-5 minutes instead of the usual 25 minute trip on the #3 or #4 buses.

However, I think Link Light Rail may be useful for us for southbound trips, especially to the airport. If you've ever tried to take a metro bus to the airport from around here, you've probably had some aggravation added to your trip. The buses are always crowded - there's no room for your bags. And the frequent delays makes it difficult to make a downtown connection that guarantees that you'll make it there in time for your flight.

But starting sometime in the 2nd half of 2009 we'll be able to take the #48 or #8 bus south for 5-8 minutes, then hop onto light rail at the Mt. Baker station at McClellan & Rainier, and be at the airport about 20 minutes later. That should be as quick as a cab ride when I-5 is busy (not to mention $35 cheaper), and way more dependable and less stressful than the downtown bus transfer.

Now if only we could get a subway that went from Bellevue, under Lake Washington, a couple of stops here in the CD, and onwards to downtown. Ultra-unlikely, but we can dream...

Although this is technically a Beacon Hill event, it's just a couple of blocks from the CD and a couple of our Jackson Place neighbors noticed it on the 911 website.

Here's the story:
At 2:58am, Seattle Police responded to a report of a fight involving at least one person armed a knife at 1120 14th Av S, on the northeastern side of the PacMed property. Medic units were called as a precaution, but stood aside until police had secured the area. No one was hurt badly enough to warrant a trip to the hospital. Police did make one arrest for assault.