Hwy. 50 bike trail in S. Tahoe moves forward
By Kathryn Reed
It took a bit of arm-twisting, but South Lake Tahoe Councilman Tom Davis finally acquiesced to colleagues’ desires to go forward with the bike trail from El Dorado Beach to Ski Run Boulevard.
“I’m frustrated with the process and amount of money,” Davis said at last week’s council meeting.
Tom Davis
The issue has been on the books since at least 2004 when the California Tahoe Conservancy gave the city money to design the project.
Design work has mostly been delayed to coordinate with Caltrans’ Highway 50 improvement. That three-year project is slated to start in May.
About 90 percent of the project has been designed, with the environmental documents expected to be released later this year.
The council, with members Claire Fortier and Bruce Grego absent, agreed to use $157,700 from the Congestion Mitigation Air Quality fund to move the project forward.
Voter approved Measure S money would pay for maintenance of the trail.
In other action:
• Jerry Bindel questioned the city’s desire in its five-year financial plan that was approved March 15 to raise the hotel tax in 2014. Bindel runs Lakeland Village, is a board member of the South Lake Tahoe Lodging Association, Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority and Tourism Improvement District.
Council and staff told him interested parties would be consulted before voters are asked to increase the tax.
• Jere Copeland, representative for some employee bargaining units, reiterated the need to make sure necessary items are negotiated and don’t become a matter of policy in terms of the fiscal plan and reorganization plan. The latter was also adopted March 15.
Until then how about taking the bike friendly sign down on HWY 50 near the airport. It’s a joke around here – really.
If we continue to build really great bike trails, it would only be a plus for our city. Clearly we can not handle the traffic from the people we have encouraged to come. Bike trails would cut down on every day traffic and parking for locals in good weather….now, what about bike stands?
good for bikers, bad for people who have to drive on our city streets. my street is so full of potholes, I have to go around them everyday. please use some of your money for street repair, even if you could just fill the holes and cracks. Thank you
Billie Jo McAfee,
If I remember correctly, the city had free bicycle racks to entities that promote bicycling.
Be nice if some places have overhead shelter protecting the bicycles from the intense sun we have, and inclement weather.
Totally agree with Billie Jo, that we really need to at least improve our bike accessibility, to cut down on traffic. We want to be busier year round, but we do not have the roads to handle busy week-ends well. Safe bike trails through popular areas of town will help a bit, as would a good reliable bus system.
I also agree with kitten about the potholes, or at the very least spray paint around them with white paint, so I at least have a chance to dodge them, until I have it seared in my mind where they are ;) Kind of tacky looking, but it beats the rude surprise of hitting one.
Thank you Careaboutthecommunity, I agree with you and I will buy the paint.
Under the circumstances of our increasingly horrrid transit situation, I have to agree with not only all the above comments, but particularly the first one, Bob.
As far back as 1998, TRAC (Tahoe Region Advocates for Cycling) was formed to push forward TRPA’s # 2 charge (right behind Lake Clarity, in other words), which is to “reduce automobile usage”, with concurrence from Jim Baetge, TRPA’s Executive Director at that time.
I do commend the work of Ty Polastri and the Bicycle Coalition, but we are overwhelmed here with agency work -(excluding the Conservancy, which at least channels some CA license plate money “towards”) – that has not taken very seriously the possible economic benefits of cycling.
Event by event is not cycling’s true and complete advantage for Tahoe, that’s probably why “Reducing automobile usage” ended up somewhere in the distant past as right behind Lake Clarity in importance to TRPA’s charter.
The market demographics of cycling are much higher than skiing, with more months of the year to work with, at almost 100,000/annum/cyclist, making a bicycle network an attractive win-win for locals and visitors alike, but the ‘same old, same old’ nature of symbiotic relationships like TRPA/League “issues” about “shorezone”, “scientific consensus”, decrepit 20 year plans, etc, etc., etc. keep driving Tahoe down from whatever will easily make it the truly green environment that everyone says they want. . .
When Lahontan wants to get consensus on spending 1.5 billion dollars over the next ten years for the implementation of the suspect TMDL process, once again they are bypassing the importance of cycling to Lake Tahoe, as the reduction of sediment and pollution is more easily accomplished by having mobility beyond just cars.
In short, a much more amenable investment . . .and good luck with rounding up 100 million dollars/year from anywhere now.
Just the oblique reference above to the potholes doesn’t tell the entire story -(although bad enough !!)- Highway 50 for most of its’ length is actually dangerous for those who might want to cycle all the time here: constricted lane widths, improper signage, etc. now only beginning to be addressed by CalTrans in sporadic projects.
To give credit where due, at least Measure S began to anticipate more by including Operation and Maintenance (O & M) within to position Tahoe for being granted the capital costs of actually building more mileage, but both time and money have both been squandered to the extent that those funds are now targeted to be used elsewhere, their original use thought to be dormant. The prescience was in recognizing that the “deal-breaker” for most grants for a municipal project is the lack of O & M, not the ability to get capital improvement funds.
The main reason I agree with Bob is that we are now finding ourselves in a position where the Chamber and the LTVA now thinks they want to have Tahoe recognized as a “cycling mecca”, when those who actually cycle a lot here know that they might be embarrassed if they try to project that to a sophisticated cycling group like Amgen.
But that was then; this is now. . . thanks to any effort that gets us closer to what will reenergize the economy. . .