Realignment more than just altering Hwy. 50
By Kathryn Reed
Panels depicting what the proposed multi-million dollar loop road project could be filled the room at Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel.
Tuesday night’s open house about the potential realignment of Highway 50 around Harrah’s and MontBleu on the South Shore was an extension of the gathering in December.
For Clay Grubb, a trail builder with the Tahoe Rim Trail Association, he is most excited about the proposed overcrossing that would link the casinos to Van Sickle Bi-State Park. It would provide a safer route than negotiating a five-lane highway.
Carl Hasty, executive director of Tahoe Transportation District, said he liked seeing new faces in the crowd on Jan. 26. The environmental documents are still slated to be released this spring, which will be followed by a 60-day comment period. TTD is the lead agency.
A slew of entities will have to sign off on the project for it to go forward – including both state departments of transportation, South Lake Tahoe, Douglas County, TTD and Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.
The City Council will have to approve the final environmental documents, and relinquish local roads and accept the new highway alignment. For the city streets that would be replaced with the highway it also means figuring out how the connector streets work, routes for emergency vehicles, and how those living in the neighborhood access the new highway and other routes they are accustomed to today.
There will be another loop road meeting Feb. 10 from 4:30pm-7pm at the South Tahoe Middle School multipurpose room. It will feature a presentation of the project, and include a question and answer session. Questions about the project are being taken in advance. Submit them to Tracy Franklin at tfranklin@cityofslt.us by 5pm Feb. 8.
Where are all the displaced people going to live, Who is going to condmen, and where’s the money coming from? Three questions no answers from Mr. Hasty, go figure. He’s had years to answer these questions, and he has no answers, but has spent thousands on meeting’s.
If the pedestrian ‘overcrossing’ is that important then build it, it doesn’t take a realignment of hwy 50, hundreds of millions of dollars, and the taking of peoples homes and businesses to build it.
And the same goes for cleaning up any commercial property in the area. Something else is going on here.
We all know what is REALLY going on. Big money. Casinos. Special interest groups.
Bit by bit these will push the project.
It will very likely, IMO, get done…eventually….after many a lawsuit and so on. Same ‘Ol, Same ‘Ol.
Bob Fleischer, I agree with you 100%, it is a done deal. Once again the citizens of South Lake Tahoe will sit on the sidelines and become pawns to big business and big money.
The city council will most likely have to use eminent domain to make this happen. The last time the eminent domain process was used, my family and several other local families lost millions. The city has never admitted their mistakes, nor made any attempt to correct the situation.
Once again, any resident, any property owner, any business owner within the loop road area be aware and make sure the promises made to you have an iron clad contract. I hope and pray that none of you will end up being financially devastated like my family.
The info from Kenny was invaluable as we now know that the costs of moving utilities will be shouldered by all the district’s customers. This is crimminal. Once again, here comes Nevada businesses with their hand out to struggling people on the CA side, to set them up and pay for it, too.
Repost;
The more I see the more it looks like Stateline’s new “Downtown” could in fact be all that new highway 50 frontage along the loop road behind Harrah’s with all that yet to be developed land as I state below. They actually could build a little city there if they wanted. They must be tired of losing all those tourist dollars to the California side of South Shore. And apparently we’re willing to hand it to them on a silver platter.
Stated goal from their website;
“The goal of TTD is to turn just more than a mile of the current Highway 50 at the state line into a road managed by South Lake Tahoe and Douglas County, and make the current local street behind the casinos into a highway. The purpose is to make the commercial area more walkable and inviting.”
Now really, what’s the true goal? What’s not ‘walkable and inviting’ about that area now? it’s all new! All this upheaval and expense for the removal of 2 out of 5 lanes of traffic for wider sidewalks is a plan devoid of any common sense. With the new plan, tourists that aren’t familiar with the area and are staying elsewhere around the lake or off the hill and want to loop the lake could easily miss all the new commercial area by simply staying on hwy 50, good plan, business out the window.
I see constant bumper to bumper traffic on the remaining 2 lanes and center lane which come to a complete stop any time someone wants to make a turn and has to wait for the (new wider) sidewalks to clear. Clearly traffic flow through this area will be adversely affected, so much for cutting down on air pollution. And it appears that the new hwy 50 rout won’t decrease the time it takes to get past the casino core enough to justify this debacle.
If you want to improve the commercial area that would be affected by this project at Pioneer and 50 then improve it. It doesn’t take this ridiculous hwy plan and waste of money to do it.
They have failed to show one financial benefit to the affected area with these options.
Maybe Nevada has plans for all this ‘new’ hwy 50 frontage on the loop road that is currently undeveloped except for a couple of parking lots. That’s about the only financial gain I can see from this project. It might be time to vet the people pushing this project.
Wouldn’t be surprised to see the two casinos be approved for large multi-level parking garages so they can sell off or develop their property along the new hwy 50 frontage to rival that of Heavenly Village. Even the Park’s would make out like bandits. I’m sure none of this would ever happen because we all know they’re planning on spending hundreds of millions of dollars to do nothing more than “make the commercial area more walkable and inviting.” BWAHAHAHAHA! Please…..
Time for crazy Karl to go away.
The Loop Road is a no brainer. Get it done and stop all the crying.
Loop Road plan looks good. Still a lot to figure out, but lets do it!
Atomic, please state some facts why the Loop Road is a no brainer. Maybe you can share your beliefs with us. I welcome your opinions; it will allow me to make a more informed decision about the Loop Road. Thanks in advance for your input.
I am sorry that you consider me crying when I stand behind my absolutely true statements about the city’s past use of the eminent domain process.
Here are the facts again from a previous post:
“The city council will most likely have to use eminent domain to make this happen. The last time the eminent domain process was used, my family and several other local families lost millions. The city has never admitted their mistakes, nor made any attempt to correct the situation.”
“Once again, any resident, any property owner, any business owner within the loop road area be aware and make sure the promises made to you have an iron clad contract. I hope and pray that none of you will end up being financially devastated like my family.”
Which facts of mine from the above quotes are you disputing?