It was a relief to see Mayor Val Tollefson hit the brakes, at least temporarily, this week on one problematic piece of the city’s Island-Wide Transportation Plan.

City staff have been working for months on an update to the plan, and the transportation plan is expected to come back before the council for a more detailed discussion at the council meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 10.

At this week’s council meeting, however, Tollefson suggested that one part of the transportation plan be axed.

It was a piece of the plan that called for “non-motorized” improvements [think sidewalks, trails and bike lanes] that would be required whenever a residential lot is developed or redeveloped.

And there lies the rub.

The improvement requirements set out in the transportation plan, in our view, are excessive and unnecessary.

For example, for any new homes built or rebuilt on the island, the property owner would have to make right-of-way dedications and easements, plus provide for sidewalks and bike lanes — rebuilt if necessary, to meet current standards.

For any projects including two lots or more, the proposed requirements grow even more onerous, and builders would have to also install extensions for sidewalks, road shoulders and bike lanes, and build or reconstruct trails up to 6 feet wide. Lots of five or more homes would also need to provide multi-use trails.

It’s no doubt sidewalks, bike lanes and trails are great amenities that increase the quality of life in any community.

But in a place such as Bainbridge, with its multitude of large lot homes and beloved rural character, it’s unfathomable to require sidewalks and bike lanes in front of every new home on the island, or any home that is rebuilt. It’s easy to imagine dozens of snippets of sidewalk and bike lanes to nowhere across the island if such regulations were adopted.

More importantly, such requirements would surely drive up the cost of housing for an island that’s rightly concerned about the limited stock of affordable housing here.

Tollefson, at this week’s council meeting, asked the council to remove those requirements from the plan.

“I’m sympathetic to what it’s trying to accomplish, but I’m not sure that’s the way we want to accomplish it, and we haven’t had any discussion about it,” he told his fellow council members.

So true. We love walking and biking as much as anyone, but this proposal for more pavement here, there and everywhere is not something we can support.