First-grader Zach Van Dusen strapped on his helmet Monday morning, hopped on his bicycle and began a half-mile trek on Cemetery Road to Chautauqua with his mother Karen Fevold.

Though Zach is a steady bicyclist, his ride to school tests his skills, because some parts of the road aren’t very biker-friendly. He and his mother or father ride on the right-hand edge of the road where the skinny shoulders are made of gravel or on the shoulder of Cemetery where it has been improved and expanded near the school. The ride is “tricky,” said Zach’s dad, Hans Van Dusen,

“It’s a busy time of day,” he said. “There’s lots of parents driving their kids to school, a lot of cars coming by, and there’s not a lot of room.”

For Zach, as for many Vashon students, walking or biking to school in the morning or home in the afternoon is far from ideal. In this rural community, there are few crosswalks, poorly lit areas, narrow shoulders and speeding vehicles to contend with.

As a result, parents and Vashon Island School District officials recently banded together to address pedestrian and bicyclist safety near Vashon’s three public schools, hoping improvements will soon be made in some of the most dangerous sections of road near Island schools.

School officials submitted a list of top road-safety improvement priorities to the King County Department of Transportation in January and plan to apply for major grant funds later this year from the state Safe Routes to School program, which pays for safety improvements near schools.

The issue of walker and biker safety came to the forefront after bus service was reduced this year to address a school district budget shortfall. Most bus service within a mile radius of the Island’s school campuses has been cut.

Reducing the number of stops Vashon school buses make is saving Vashon Island School District tens of thousands of dollars this year, but some families who live close to school don’t see walking or biking as a safe way to get there. Many parents have opted to drive their children to school rather than have them brave the sometimes spotty road conditions on the way to Chautauqua, McMurray or Vashon High School.

The roads in a one-mile radius of Vashon’s schools are “mostly not safe,” said mom Fevold, who lives on Cemetery Road west of Vashon Highway.

“In the morning, I think most parents are driving their kids to school because of the safety issues,” Fevold said. Some “residents have said, ‘We’d like our kids to bike and walk, but it’s just not safe.’”

Fevold and another parent, Martha Johnson, have helped organize Vashon parents into a coalition on bike and pedestrian safety.

“When bus service was decreased in September so that many families within a one-mile radius of were not included, we thought it was a great opportunity to develop safe bike and pedestrian routes as a transportation alternative,” Johnson said.

Dave Wilke, Vashon Island School District facilities and safety director, who has been working with parents on the issue, said he understands parents’ concerns about sending kids to school on foot or on bike.

“There are some really good designated footpaths and some wider sections of shoulder, but it’s not continuous,” he said. “We’ve had parents expressing concern — they want their kids to be able to walk or ride bikes, but it’s just way too sketchy.”

Several past safety improvements have been paid for by governmental grant funds, including the reconfiguration of the parking lot and installation of walkways at Chautauqua and the extra-wide shoulder on the south side of Cemetery Road between the highway and Beall Road.

On the wish list Wilke sent to King County for future projects are dicey areas like Beall Road, Vashon Highway west of Vashon High and the intersection of Monument, Ellisport and 204th Street.

The three-way intersection at 204th Street south of Vashon High School is a particularly sticky area, Wilke said, one that’s fraught with little visibility and no safe designated way to get kids across 204th to the streets south of it.

Additionally, there’s no marked area for students to cross Cemetery Road east of the school. At both Cemetery and 204th, the only crosswalks are at Vashon Highway, a nearly half-mile walk west of Chautauqua.

“One of the big complicators is how to get people safely across 204th” and Cemetery, Wilke said.

It’s not so simple, he added, as painting a crosswalk over the street. With a crosswalk comes a feeling of invincibility for some pedestrians, who may put themselves in danger by cavalierly stepping into the road because they are within the limits of a crosswalk.

“Crosswalks are a double-edged sword,” Wilke said. “Even if you have a really good crossing guard system so that during the beginning and end of school you’ve got adults out there working, what’s the liability to the school or the county when it’s not school hours?”

County Department of Transportation officials will examine Vashon’s list of unsafe areas and, if funding is available, may opt to work on one of the intersections or roads this year.

The issues Vashon students face when walking or biking to school are typical of a rural area, Wilke said.

“We don’t have the sidewalks and the defined pathways that urban centers do,” he said. He’s looking forward, he said, to applying for funds through the state Safe Routes to School program later this year.

“You can get into the hundreds of thousands of dollars from Safe Routes to effect some pretty big changes,” Wilke said. “Realistically, we could be talking about millions of dollars.”