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Residents urge quicker pedestrian-safety fixes after fatal crash at Cole and Stevenson
Summary
Residents at the June 22 Enumclaw City Council meeting pressed the council to accelerate pedestrian-safety measures at Cole and Stevenson and other neighborhood corridors after the January crash that killed a local resident, urging temporary measures and faster funding decisions.
At the June 22 Enumclaw City Council meeting, multiple residents urged faster action to reduce speeding and improve pedestrian safety in neighborhood corridors — most urgently at the Cole and Stevenson intersection where a January crash later proved fatal.
The calls came during the public-comment period, where Nora Tackenboge, a longtime city resident, said, “We lost Eileen Griffith due to somebody not stopping at that sign,” and asked the council to consider low-cost visual measures such as hand-held red flags to improve driver awareness.
Why it matters: Speakers said the danger is ongoing and described near-misses and routine noncompliance with stop signs in several neighborhoods. Council members heard requests for both short-term, inexpensive interventions and longer-term capital fixes to improve sightlines and pedestrian infrastructure.
Residents recounted local incidents and specific concerns. One resident who identified himself as a Navy veteran described frequent high speeds and drivers using phones at the Cole and Stevenson corner and urged lights, signs and enforcement, saying, “Before we have more deaths, we don’t need that.” Cindy Proctor, another longtime resident, highlighted the Rilla Lane/Melody Lane corridor, noting missing ADA-compliant curb cuts, increased cut-through traffic and parking patterns that reduce driver visibility; she offered to provide documented video of stop-sign violations.
Speakers and staff framed remedies on two tracks: quick, lower-cost options to improve visibility and driver behavior, and design or construction work that will take longer to plan and fund. Nora Tackenboge and others specifically asked the council not to delay until the winter or January if temporary measures can be deployed sooner.
What happened next: The council received the comments during the public-comment period; no formal motion or directive to staff was recorded on the floor during the meeting.
Context and next steps: The public comments coincided with committee reports noting ongoing discussions about gate pricing, safety projects and other neighborhood needs. Residents asked the council and staff to report back with timelines and potential interim measures ahead of the city’s planned capital work.
