To the editor:

I’ve been a recreational bike rider on Bainbridge Island for more than 20 years. With a few exceptions, most arterials on the island are unsafe at any speed to bike, or walk. There are few, if any, dedicated bike lanes, and only a handful of roads with shoulders that are wide enough to accommodate bikers and walkers.

Prop. 1, the Safe Access for Everyone (SAFE) Mobility Levy, will address these flaws and make it safer for bikers, walkers, and cars and trucks to co-exist on island roads.

Does the plan have flaws in it? Sure. Nothing’s ever perfect in politics. The parceling out of the pie to accommodate walking and biking, and trails and connections in downtown Winslow is aimed at ensuring that the money is not strictly dedicated to bike lanes and shoulders only.

The aim of the $15 million Levy is four-pronged: to create bike lanes and shoulders so that motorists can safely pass bikers on busy arterials, and that these same improved roadways can be shared by walkers and pedestrians; that school kids can have safer walking and biking trails and/or lanes to and from schools; adding safer sidewalks and trails in the downtown Winslow core, our most densely populated neighborhoods; and keeping a small amount back in the levy pot for discretionary projects that might come up over the next seven years.

While some critics have knocked the levy for not being specific enough about what roadways will be worked on, that approach is really akin to good public planning. The city doesn’t want to say it will work on such and such stretch of road, only to find out it’s costlier than originally anticipated to construct.

There is a pretty comprehensive list of roads and trails — a lot of them included in the so-called Core 40 — that will be addressed by a citizens committee that ultimately will decide what projects will be worked on by the city or its subcontractors. The committee will be appointed by the city council and it would behoove anyone interested in this issue to become involved.

Finally, the levy might indeed have a few weak points and question marks, but if the community doesn’t jump on this opportunity now, we may live to regret it. I’m voting “yes” and I encourage you all to do the same.

KEVIN DWYER

Bainbridge Island