Another issue is that the "driveway"  that leads to these steps is tagged as a private driveway but is in a ROW. In the OSM history of the road way, there's a note: "Removed road name as non existing, changed road type to private driveway according to local user's request   #mbx_usa_editing". I'd like to know the story here. This is clearly one of those Bainbridge Island situations where a property owner is claiming public land is private, or whatever. Given this, I wouldn't be surprised if the steps do in fact start on private property. I'll ask the user who made that change what they know.