SUQUAMISH — For the past three years, Suquamish Elementary’s Gail Petranek has been leading the charge to compile data and information to apply for a $500,000 Washington State Department of Transportation grant to improve the community’s walkability.

For the past three decades, bicycle advocate Willy Weir has been cycling around the world, writing and speaking on the benefits of pedal power compared to fossil fuels.

On Oct. 4, the two fused on International Walk to School Day — an event celebrated in 40 different countries — promoting physical activity and environmental concern to a gym full of Suquamish Elementary students.

“By the time you are all in high school, you will have seen probably tens of thousands of advertisements that tell you, ‘You need to buy an expensive SUV to have an adventure,’” Weir said in his energetic presentation. “And I’ll tell you, they are lying to you.”

The Walk to School Day event brought Suquamish students along with Weir, Kitsap County Health District’s health promotion manager Melinda Harmon and Bicycle Alliance of Washington’s Seattle director of development Dave Janis to school on foot. The day also marked the completion of a Safe Route to Schools grant application, which Petranek and the Suquamish Community Advisory Committee’s traffic sub-committee have been working on for the past three years.

“When I was watching what was occurring on the roads, it scared me,” Petranek said of her thoughts once she joined the school’s safety patrol. “It scared me enough to know that I needed to do my part so that not one kid isn’t safe at our school.”

Petranek led the charge in writing the grant along with partners Greg Cioc of the Kitsap County Public Works Department, Craig Curtis, a concerned parent, and Tom Curly of the Suquamish Tribe. The two also serve on the SCAC. The sub-committee expects a response concerning the $500,000 grant from WSDOT in June 2007.

“(The grant) is not very specific,” Curtis said. “The first step is: let’s see if we can get the money. Then we will go into the design phase with the county and decide where the money is best spent.”

If awarded, the money will likely go toward upgrading Suquamish’s roadways with sidewalks or bigger right of ways to improve safety for pedestrians throughout the community.

When asked if he felt safe when walking to school through his community, Suquamish Elementary sixth-grader Kevin Lacey said, “It depends on where you are. Around the school, yeah, but in my old neighborhood, not at all.”

Petranek said that sentiment is echoed by many residents in the community. This feeling was evidenced by survey data she compiled last year, which stated that parents did not want their kids walking to school because they did not feel safe about the conditions along Suquamish’s roadways.

“It’s just a lot better to walk to school because, for one, it keeps you in shape, it’s fun and it’s better for the environment,” Lacey said.

While that was the message of Weir’s presentation and Internationa; Walk to School Day, the message of the Safe Route to School’s grant is that kids are not safe walking to school on the narrow streets of Suquamish.

As a result, if the SCAC’s traffic sub-committee is awarded the grant in June 2007, it will have one year to complete the project aimed at improving pedestrian safety in the community.

“I’m not stopping,” Petranek said. “If there is a possibility that this (grant) won’t happen, there are other avenues I can go down to make Suquamish a safer place.”