Letters to the editor
Published 1:30 am Friday, May 29, 2026
Treat ferry corridor like a staircase
To the editor:
This is a response to the May 22 letter to the editor offering why 625 Winslow must be held to a different standard.
The intersection at 625 Winslow is part of the ferry corridor. It is not just another street. In many ways, it functions like a staircase, and like any staircase, its primary purpose is movement and flow.
It is a vital circulation route that thousands of people depend upon every day to move safely and efficiently between home, work, school, medical care, and commerce—not only Bainbridge Islanders, but also residents throughout Kitsap and the peninsula.
When designing a staircase, you do not place obstacles where people must pass. You do not create blind congestion points or introduce uses that interfere with safe circulation. Doing so creates confusion, bottlenecks, stress, and risk. A staircase succeeds when movement is intuitive, open, and functional.
The ferry corridor should be treated the same way: designed first for safe and efficient movement, not competing uses that disrupt flow.
Unlike most intersections on Bainbridge Island, this corridor concentrates thousands of vehicles into a confined area during prolonged periods of idling and stop-and-go traffic. That creates elevated levels of diesel exhaust, brake dust, tire particulates, and noise pollution directly where people walk, wait, and potentially live. Numerous public health studies have linked long-term exposure to traffic-related pollution with asthma, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory illness.
Mary Ann Proctor
Bainbridge Island
Consider water in future growth
To the editor:
I encourage council to be thoughtful and balanced in planning for future growth.
We must consider water. There seems to be a lot of magical thinking in terms of water. In fact, the new Groundwater Management Plan is ambiguous about long-term availability. Given the unknowns of climate change, we must err on the side of caution because, once there is saltwater intrusion, there is no going back. We will all be trucking in and buying water. By the way, I’m 79. I’ll be gone, but those of you in your 20s, 30s, and 50s should be concerned.
We must consider our existing struggling residents. Despite the popular stereotype that all Bainbridge residents are rich people, the fact is that a significant portion of us are just hanging on. This includes struggling singles, families and seniors on fixed incomes. Helpline serves 1 in 10 island families annually, with 500 families using the food bank weekly. When we support big market rate growth versus focused workforce housing growth, taxes must increase to fund sewer and road infrastructure. Those increased taxes will make Bainbridge increasingly unaffordable to both existing and possible new residents.
Thanks to council for tackling this very tough conundrum. I appreciate your work to find compromise and assure balance in your decisions as we plan for increased affordability and a sustainable future.
Ellen Lockert
Bainbridge Island
Does the city really work for us?
To the editor:
The City of Bainbridge Island, by its actions, really doesn’t work for the people of Bainbridge Island. They work for Seattle. Did they move here for that purpose? The city wants to use Bainbridge Island as Seattle’s overflow, cheap housing. That is why they want to build next to the ferry. Who pays for this? The people of Bainbridge Island. The lot at 305 and Winslow Way, where the historic police/fire department stood, is the most important lot on the island because it is the gateway to our businesses, our island and Kitsap County.
Shouldn’t the most important lots on Bainbridge be used for the good of all the people rather than just cheap housing for a few people? Why waste the best property on the island when you can put cheap housing on cheaper land and, in so doing, serve more people? This is a DEI ego trip for the city.
Atson Reeder
Bainbridge Island
Let it not happen again
To the editor:
I grew up on an island that taught me to remember; now I live in a region that demands I act. Recently, Tennessee State Rep. Justin J. Pearson said, “Whatever you think you would’ve been doing during the Civil Rights Movement, look at what you’re doing now. That’s what you would’ve been doing back then.”
In 1942, President Roosevelt signed EO 9066, and Japanese Americans who lived on Bainbridge were gathered and removed from the island. They were first sent to Manzanar in California and later transferred to Minidoka in Idaho. When the exclusion order was lifted at the end of WWII, over half of those interned returned.
Growing up on Bainbridge, you learn a phrase that is cemented in your brain. “Nidoto Nai Yoni” (Let It Not Happen Again.) Today, 2,000 miles away in the heart of the South, that phrase stays with me, and the fight of who gets to participate in our democracy remains the same. All change runs through the South. The 19th Amendment hinged on one vote in Tennessee; it has always been the place where ordinary people have stood against injustice.
Most moments do not announce themselves as history. They arrive as policy decisions, procedures, and the necessary measures. These actions arrive quietly, tangled in text that no one can understand, confusing by design. They arrive quietly until they don’t. The moment is now; whatever you think you would have done then, is what you choose to do now.
Katherine Jackson
Bainbridge Island
