ISLAND COUNTY: Whidbey Islanders continue to push for island-long trail

Sam Fletcher reports on the Island County Comprehensive Plan update for the Whidbey News-Times.

Island County Public Works is taking input for the transportation element of the 2025 comprehensive plan update, and some Whidbey Islanders are pushing for completion of the Whidbey Isle or bridge-to-boat trail, an island-long non-motorized trail reaching from the Deception Pass Bridge to the Clinton-Mukilteo Ferry.

The trail was first adopted in 2009 and has been constructed in small, scattered pieces. While it remains on the county’s non-motorized trail plan, transportation improvement plan and comprehensive plan, these plans have so many items that some of them get reprioritized as other issues take precedence in the minds of both the commissioners and the public, said Commissioner Melanie Bacon.

They Said It

According to Bacon, the other priorities are a bigger hold-up than funding small sections of the trail at different times. Implementing the entire trail at once would be “impossibly” expensive, she said….

Members of the public should bring their “ideas, enthusiasm and support” to the board through public comments during the regular Tuesday meetings, Bacon said. They should include how they would use the trail and which section should be completed soonest.

People can also comment at planning commission meetings and contact public works directly as staff begin the transportation element of the 2025 comprehensive plan update. Also, pieces of the bridge-to-boat trail will likely become imbedded into “Safe Streets for All,” a project of the Island Regional Transportation Planning Organization, which also takes public comment.

“Once completed, (the trail) will be one of the greatest economic, safety and recreational assets of our county,” Bacon said.