(Editor's note: The following is an open letter to Mayor Greg Nickels.)

On April 7, the Seattle Transportation Department "decommissioned" the crosswalk on N. 85th Street at Palatine Avenue N.

The businesses in the area had been asking the Transportation Department for years to do something to make the crosswalk safer for pedestrians with very little response.

Then, in the proverbial dead-of-night, it is REMOVED without any input or discussion with the business people or residents in the area.

When contacted, the Transportation Department people responsible said that they were not required to notify us of their decision ... and that there was no need to ask anyone for suggestions or ideas to improve rather than remove the crosswalk because they had already decided that any improvement would adversely affect traffic patterns at N. 85th Street and Greenwood Avenue.

This community is outraged! It was our understanding that the idea was to bring together communities, not divide them!

The removal of this crosswalk effectively cuts off the businesses on the south side of N. 85th Street from the rest of Greenwood.

The Transportation Department has admittedly no idea how many people use that crosswalk daily only the statistics of how many people have been hit in the last eight years. They say that the people will now just go to the lights at Greenwood or First Avenue NW to cross. That does not and will not happen!

With the only major parking in the area on the north side of the street, mid-block, people still cross where the crosswalk used to be - only now it is far more dangerous.

People simply do not want to walk the two to four blocks out of their way in order to cross at a light when they can just go across the street.

The Greenwood neighborhood has one of the highest concentrations of elderly in Seattle. ... They now have only two choices: cross the even more dangerous "missing crosswalk" or go elsewhere with their business.

At the Greenwood/Phinney Chamber of Commerce meeting on May 2, the people from the Seattle Transportation Department seemed to be more interested in convincing the community that nothing can or will be done than coming up with a solution to the problem. They obviously cared nothing about the almost 400 signatures on petitions that were presented at the time of the meeting.

We all got the impression that since they are not elected officials, they don't care about disgruntled constituents.

They say that they actually believe it is now safer now than it was with the crosswalk markings because "people will take more care in crossing" and that "there is no PROOF that a lighted crosswalk would make it any safer."

We don't need an expensive and time-consuming study to see that the cars don't even slow down now, much less stop for pedestrians.

Mayor Nickels, you ran for office with a strong community plank to your campaign. There has to be a compromise that will allow for good traffic flow, protect pedestrians and, at the same time, keep the Greenwood community viable and strong.

We propose a stop light at the crosswalk at N. 85th Street and Palatine Avenue that would be timed to turn red only after a button is pushed by a pedestrian AND the light at the N. 85th and Greenwood Avenue intersection for eastbound N. 85th traffic turns green.

This could only affect traffic if it had already backed up eastbound past the crosswalk. This does happen sometimes at rush hour, but most of the businesses on the south side of N. 85th Street are closed by 5 or 5:30 p.m. and that leaves very few pedestrians wanting to "push the button" at those times.

Compromise should not mean, "Cars win, pedestrians and communities lose."

- GARY MASTERS, Greenwood Optical