Thursday, October 1, 2026
Thurston Regional Planning Council (TRPC) Executive Director Marc Daily discussed the 2025 Beyond Walk & Roll and Regional Safety Plan for road safety and bicycle connectivity with the Olympia School District (OSD) Board on Thursday, November 14, 2024.
At last Thursday's meeting, Daily discussed the council’s role in county and school board collaborations.
“Many of you might not know that Olympia School District was one of the founding members of Thurston Regional Planning Council back in 1967. So we've been around for a very long time, at this point 57 years, working on planning issues across boundaries for our region,” said Daily.
OSD Board’s representative to TRPC is President Hilary Seidel, who served as TRPC Chair for two years.
“It is incredibly important that we have the voice of schools and of the needs of students as part of our discussions when we're talking about land use, transportation, [and] environmental issues,” said Daily.
Daily clarified that TRPC is an entirely independent entity, contrary to the belief that TRPC is Thurston County’s subsidiary.
Incepted in 1967, TRPC is a voluntary organization of 23 members from counties, cities, and special purpose districts that works on issues across jurisdictional boundaries.
“We work primarily on issues…related to transportation, land use, growth management, and the environment. A big part of what we do is we're considered a metropolitan planning organization; that's the federal term for our organization,” Daily said.
As a metropolitan planning organization, TRPC receives funding from the Federal Government for its programs in local transportation projects.
Daily mentioned that TRPC has funded Intercity Transit's Walk and Roll program for many years and is currently proposing another three years of funding.
“We're also going to be working on a Regional Transportation Safety Action plan. And this, we certainly need school district involvement,” said Daily,
The upcoming plan incorporates plans like Olympia’s Safe Streets Plan to collate improvements at a regional level.
TRPC is also working on a multimodal level of service to ensure proper planning and monitoring of performance for all modes of transportation and to provide an equitable transportation system for the region.
“For some time our region has wanted to do better and look at not just how it's performing for vehicles, but how is it performing for people that are walking, for people using mobility devices, people on bikes and buses, in addition to those people that have their own vehicles,” said Daily.
The council is developing a bicycle connectivity strategy that examines ways to make the routes pedestrians and cyclists cross more efficient.
The strategy would pinpoint the gaps in the system, and see whether adjustments could make that a better, more viable, and safer experience for cyclists.
The Thurston Regional Planning Council presented the 2025 and Beyond Walk & Roll and Regional Safety Plan, which contains improvements to regional road safety and bicycle connectivity, to the Olympia School District.
JOLT Staff photo via Zoom
5 comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here
marcTRPC
Thank you, Jade and all at JOLT, for your excellent local coverage!
Wednesday, November 20, 2024 Report this
KarenM
I hope the school district will consider improvement of neighborhood pathways for part of their funding. The pathways can make a shorter and safer walk for students. These need to be surfaced so that they can handle bikes, strollers, etc. and potentially lighted. Making it possible for more students to walk or cycle to school will improve their health and readiness to learn. It also reduces congestion near the school.
Wednesday, November 20, 2024 Report this
36098501
KarenM - I think school districts should focus on educating children.
School's don't have the budget or resources available to accomplish the objective you mentioned. It is already challenging enough for families to afford to live in Olympia and have their children attend Olympia Public Schools.
We can't layer in another cost and objective to OSD that is already struggling to sort its way through a changing economic environment.
I do love how paths, sidewalks and parks benefit the community. Let the City sort pedestrian infrastructure out since it falls within their responsibility and ability to find financial resources.
Remind me... Doesn't Olympia already assess a tax focused on just the type of investment mentioned?
Thursday, November 21, 2024 Report this
KarenM
Olykidd88 - I agree that the district should not get into the detailed business of constructing infrastructure for walking and cycling. However, the district does spend money on bus transportation for students. A whole department for planning, bus purchase and maintenance, drivers, etc. Walking and cycling reduces the need for expensive of bus routes. Avoiding the expense and pollution and other problems with school bus transportation is a worthy of effort on the part of the board and staff. There are direct learning benefits to students who exercise daily.
The district should be concerned about safe walking routes. Working with the city to create more safe routes and support more students to walk and cycle is part of what they should be doing.
Friday, November 22, 2024 Report this
36098501
KarenM - Ultimately, I think I agree with the ideas and benefits of the improvements you mention. Where I typically struggle is with who is best positioned to manage and maintain those improvements and the absorb those costs.
There are many things that can be done to make the Community more family and pedestrian friendly. The goals I typically agree with, but the approach, plan and taxpayer impact is often challenging for me to get my arms around. Many times the outcome results in unintended consequences
My biggest concern with OSD is that we have made it so expensive to live in Olympia that fewer young families will be able to live here and build and support the community. I've lost track, but I think the median home price in Olympia is around $530k with increasing property taxes and insurance rates. Inflation has really left its mark on all families, but especially young families.
While the improvements you mentioned are nice, we can only continue to build a diverse community if young families can afford to live here. As a community, we continue to add costs and bureaucracy that make this problem worse not better.
I could add context here, but that would be a long read and not really relevant to the topic of this article.
Friday, November 22, 2024 Report this