This is one of the biggest misperceptions about the trail. The answer to the first question is that it’s quite literally for everyone. We anticipate that the trail when completed will serve a wide range of users walking and biking for a range of purposes, and that the vast majority of the users will be island residents. Examples of potential users and use cases include the following:

• Bike commuters getting to and from the ferry
• Island families out for a leisurely bike ride on the weekend
• People who live near the trail walking their dogs
• Runners looking for a long, contiguous facility separated from car traffic
• People who like to bike 10-15 miles but prefer not to bike on roads next to cars
• People traveling to Sakai Park, Meigs Park or Manzanita Park for some time connecting with nature
• People traveling to the Farmers’ Market on a Saturday morning
• Elderly people looking for a safe place with a smooth surface to walk for exercise
• People visiting the island to camp at a park or explore the Bloedel Reserve
• People doing a multi-day bike tour to the Olympic Peninsula

The STO Trail is not just a bike path. It’s intended to be used by many types of users going in both directions. The widely accepted design standard for shared-use paths of this kind calls for a minimum width of 10 feet, with greater width in areas expected to see particularly heavy use; trail width can be dropped to 8 feet for short distances where physical constraints exist or where use is expected to be light.

All STO partners are very aware of the need to minimize impacts on trees and vegetation as the trail is extended to the north. The main reason for the visual impacts at the beginning of the trail is that the steep slopes there required significant regrading to accommodate the trail. That issue will not exist along most of the intended course of the trail.

While some trees will need to be removed to build the trail, we will adjust the route to minimize impacts as much as possible, and will continue to plant more trees than are removed.

Most areas along the route have a significant planting buffer so that trees and other vegetation will remain in areas where the trail is built, often on both sides of the trail. In addition, we can plan for future construction of the trail by planting additional trees and native plants now in anticipation of future trail construction, further minimizing the near-term visual impacts of construction.

This is an important question. It is true that there are pressing needs to improve conditions for walking and biking along many island roads, and addressing those gaps should be a top priority. And it is also true that the STO Trail is part of a regional trail system that can attract grant money for which many local projects would not be eligible. For that reason, the City intends to rely almost entirely on grant programs having a 13.5 percent City match for construction of the STO Trail, at least until other major local safety priorities have been adequately addressed.