Calif. joins quest to bring Olympics to Tahoe in 2022
By KCRA
The 2022 Winter Olympic Games are more than a decade away, yet a Sacramento group is already working on the pitch to bring the games to Lake Tahoe.
The California Winter Games Committee announced a partnership between political, business and community leaders to explore ways to attract the worldwide spectacle to the Sierra for the first time since Squaw Valley hosted the games in 1960.
The committee said bringing the Olympics to Lake Tahoe would bring enormous economic benefit to hub cities like Sacramento.
The California committee will join forces with the Reno-Tahoe Winter Games Coalition to promote both states as combined hosts.
“We believe California needs a strong statewide effort to match up with the knowledge and resources from Nevada to create a unique, carefully constructed and economically feasible plan,” said Michael Faust, interim president of the California Winter Games Committee.
Does anyone believe that the investment dollars that it would take to put on a Winter Olympics in Tahoe would ever find their way back to the investors? Ask yourself (or Google) how it has worked out for Vancouver or the other locations in the last two decades. My bet would be that they are still in debt from the event.
There is no way the regulatory agencies will allow the road widening necessary to handle these type of crowds. The Reno folks need to remember this before they waste their $$ on a bid effort.
An Olympic bid requires that we look at transportation upgrades from a completely different prespective. It’s no secret that an auto-centric model absolutely would not work…hell it’s barely working with our current visitation patterns. Olympic bids require the bidders to develop a plan that includes a host of sustainability programs so that the region will benefit from them well beyond the end of the games. More auto traffic would most certainly NOT benefit our region long term. In order to even have a shot at hosting a winter Olympic games, we would need to propose a comprehensive network of other transit options like water borne, rail, clean fuel busses and trollies, trams, people movers and so on.
One of the TRPA’s chief mandates is to reduce reliance on automobiles and very little has been done in that regard. An Olympic bid may just provide the impetus and funds necessary to bring our wretched, dilapidated, ineficient, polluting, frustrating excuse for a transportation system into the 21st century.
I would think before moving to far forward these organizations should check around and figure out where events will be held. I don’t think there is anywhere in the Tahoe basin to hold a world class downhill, especially at our current resorts, and where are we going to build the ski jumping hill or a bobsled run? I guess we could stage those events back in Park City. Also, who would ever think of Reno or Sacramento as a winter olympic venue. Change the name to The Lake Tahoe Olympic Games!!