: . . . I am thinking a wider solid strip down the center with no strip . . .

That should work for you. Actually, the strip doesn't need to be any wider than the rest. Just use a regular strip that you didn't glue any lighter colored trim to.
When you glue up your boards with the accent wood, then you'll jsut orient them so the accent wood touches the base wood. Decks don;t have a great curvature. You could stack four plies: 3/4 base, 1/8th accent, 3/4 base 1/8th accent. You'll end up with a stack about 1 3/4 thick which you can rip into your 1/4 inch or 3/16th inch strips for the deck. With these double-wide strips you'll have fewer joints to fit, so stripping will go faster. Working with 1x6 stock for your base, you'll get about 14 strips, which is going ot be about 26 inches wide. Add that to the plain centerline strip and you should have all you need for your deck.

Save some of your wood and you can steam bend it to make a seat with matching stripes. Very neat lookng.

PGJ