Publisher’s note: This is one of a few stories about construction planned for the Lake Tahoe Basin this summer. On April 16, the South Lake Tahoe City Council will be discussing this summer’s construction plans. The meeting at Lake Tahoe Airport starts at 9am.

By Kathryn Reed

Bike trails in Tahoe are so bad that some routes that were designed for road bikes, now necessitate the use of a mountain bike or are not rideable even when snow is gone in most places.

That is about to change in some locations of the South Shore.

The bridges over Trout Creek and Upper Truckee River will be overhauled this summer. The decking will be replaced with a hardwood material similar to what is on the 15th Street bridge.

The bike trail behind Meek’s in South Lake Tahoe will be resurfaced this summer. Photo/LTN file

The city received a $475,000 grant from the state and the recreation joint powers authority allocated $100,000 to be used to repave the trail behind Meeks Lumber in South Lake Tahoe.

“We will be pulverizing the existing bike trail, regrading and paving over,” Jim Marino, capital improvements project manager for the city, told Lake Tahoe News. “It’s a very efficient way to replace the system.”

The affected area goes west from Los Angeles Avenue at Harrison Avenue to the intersection of Third and James streets.

“We want to raise it so it’s not so wet,” Marino said.

Part of this trail is often covered with water well into the spring because of how the trail dips and in some parts parallels a marsh area. Plus, some businesses along the route push their snow onto the trail.

Cyclists and walkers heavily use this plot of asphalt. It keeps people off Highway 50 and in doing so provides a linear east-west link between much of the city limits.

The trail will not be widened to meet current new trail standards. Permitting and coverage issues precluded doing that. What will be done falls into maintenance replacement.

Another low-lying trail that needs substantive work is behind McDonald’s at the Y.

“We are going to have to look at ways to raise it and put a culvert under it. A lot of time in the year it is not useable,” Marino said.

The segment of trail only gets touched this summer if funding is found or other projects come in under bid.

The Bicycle Coalition is looking at installing wayfinding signs for the various trails so people will be able figure out how the trail systems connect, Marino said.

In 2014, the El Dorado to Ski Run trail will be built. This will be paid for from state and federal sources.

“Right now we are 98 percent funded,” Marino said. “We do have to acquire land. We will do that this summer.”

This will be a class one trail on the lake side of Highway 50 going from the Alta Mira Building to Ski Run Boulevard. That building will eventually be the eastern terminus for the Lakeview Commons project. (California Tahoe Conservancy is planning to buy the structure-land to return it to open space-recreation.)

When the Linear Park project begins this summer it will also include repaving of that entire trail.