Work finishing off on Sakai Trail
Published 1:30 am Friday, October 29, 2021
The Sakai Pond Connector Trail is ready for its grand opening on Bainbridge Island at noon Nov. 3.
The last 400 feet of asphalt is done, and nearly 200 Douglas fir and Western red cedar starts will be planted, along with 180 native shrubs including thimbleberry, Pacific mock orange and black twinberry.
“That’s the essence of the vision for the STO and all its connectors,” said Don Willott of the Friends of the Sound To Olympics Trail. “It’s a greenway. It’s habitat. It’s going from what was the shoulder of the highway, without much thought beyond getting the highway paved, to restoring the beautiful place that was here when Europeans started arriving. It will become more and more of the ‘linear park’ that we have been working on for so many years.”
Compared to the mile-long STO Winslow Connector — completed in 2018, from Winslow Way to High School Road — the new Sakai Pond Connector is modest. The short route runs about 600 feet from the northwest corner of High School/Highway 305 to the south boundary of Sakai Park.
There, it links with trails in the park’s wooded lower bowl, which run in turn around Sakai Pond and up to Madison Avenue and the school campus. A graveled spur off the trail’s paved portion serves a Kitsap Transit bus stop on the highway. Riders can now exit a southbound bus and walk up the trail to High School Road, rather than braving the highway shoulder.
Mark Epstein, city engineering project manager, said, “It provides a new connection to explore the trails and observe wildlife around the beautiful pond within Sakai Park.”
STO is a regional non-motorized route that will link the Winslow ferry terminal with the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas. It is being done one segment at a time, across Poulsbo, Port Gamble and unincorporated Kitsap and Jefferson counties, to eventually reach the Olympic Discovery Trail to the Pacific.
The Sakai Connector was funded primarily by developers of the Wintergreen on High School Road as a condition of that development. Trail construction was by Liden Land Development and Excavation of Poulsbo.
Bainbridge’s portion of the STO will run north along the highway to Agate Pass Bridge. The city and BI Metro Park & Recreation District are already planning the next leg, from Sakai Park north toward Madison Avenue.
Light snacks will be served at the grand opening. For details go to www.bainbridgewa.gov/1293.
