Listening session – we felt heard

City of Olympia staff scheduled a Listening Session on June 25th in response to concerns they and the city council members have received about speeding and traffic safety on Capitol Way. Quite a few South Capitol and Wildwood neighborhood folks attended, and I think it’s safe to say that everyone who participated felt heard.

Max DeJarnatt, associate planner, kicked off the listening session by explaining how the meeting would go. Attendees would be divided into three groups and then asked to share their experiences, their vision, and lastly, their short-term and long-term solutions to achieve it.

Sophie Stimson, transportation director, also spoke, referencing a fact sheet they had prepared, which included data about speeds on Capitol Way, actions the city has taken to reduce speed on the arterial, and descriptions of short-term and long-term work.

She said they are planning a resurface and reconfiguration project on Capitol Way that will reduce lanes from four to three – one in each direction and a center turn lane – and add five-foot bike lanes with additional buffering in some places.

The reduction of lanes is subject to grant funding because it must be done as part of a resurfacing project. Sophie acknowledged that Capitol Way is fairly unique – an old arterial with single family homes facing it – and the goal is to make it more walkable and bikeable.

Lieutenant Paul Frailey, Olympia Police Department, wrapped up the opening remarks. He said that OPD is focusing efforts on school zones and places where they receive the most complaints, and they receive a lot of complaints from South Capitol. It is the highest patrolled neighborhood in the city. OPD has been short-staffed but they have been recruiting and hiring and hope to be back up to full staff by 2025. He mentioned that the State Patrol has been helping out, too, by writing tickets for speeding and dangerous driving.

Discussions were robust – the smaller groups gave everyone an opportunity to speak, and many concerns and ideas for improvement were shared. These were captured by city staff on flip charts – Michelle Swanson, senior planner, did an excellent job capturing those from my group.

A number of other city staff participated as well – Mark Russell, public works director, Dave Smith, project engineer, John Lindsey, transportation data coordinator, Josh Marcuson, police sergeant, and Kristin Gilkerson, program specialist. And three city council members – Clark Gilman, Robert Vanderpool and Mayor Dontae Payne – also attended, moving from group to group throughout the evening, actively listening to the discussions.

The session officially ended at 7:30 pm, but staff stuck around for another half hour to chat with folks and answer any additional questions that came up.

Next steps

City staff will email notes recorded at the meeting to attendees who provided email addresses during sign-in. They will also provide information in a second email about next steps the city will take as a result of the listening session.

South Capitol Neighborhood Association Traffic Committee members will meet again in mid-July to discuss the listening session in more depth and develop a public messaging strategy. We will report more on this topic once we hear back from city staff.