Transportation officials interested in KMS site

By Kathryn Reed

Kingsbury Middle School may be turned into a transportation hub of sorts.

“For that location to work definitely the buildings would have to be modified,” Carl Hasty, executive director of Tahoe Transportation District, told Lake Tahoe News. “One thing we are getting into is some facilities planning for the bus yard. We want to know what options are out there.”

The fleet of 40 BlueGo buses that are all owned by TTD are stored on property that is rented from South Lake Tahoe in the industrial area. This location is too small to keep all the vehicles inside and it requires some upgrades, according to Hasty. The ventilation system needs to be revamped to handle the compressed natural gas vehicles (CMG), plus buses are getting taller. There is no fueling station at the city yard nor is there a bus washing facility.

TTD owns the CMG fueling station at Lake Tahoe Airport and then contracts for diesel service.

Talks are at the initial stages between TTD and Douglas County School District for a potential 30-year lease.

Douglas County School District in January 2012 voted to put the 10-acre school on the market with an asking price is $4 million. To date no one has made a formal offer, though there have been multiple inquiries. The buildings encompass 36,000-square-feet.

The district consolidated its three lake schools into two starting with the 2008-09 school year because of declining enrollment. It has sat empty since then.

At the board’s April meeting it was determined that renting the site could be an option instead of only selling it. For what price remains a huge unknown. Tenant improvements would be part of the equation.

TTD is hoping to have its facilities plan done by the end of the year. What is likely to be a document that looks at needs for the next 20 years will be designed to address at short- and long-term issues. Until that time, Hasty said it would be premature to enter an agreement with DCSD.

Hasty said facilities dollars are hard to find, but it’s easier to do so with a plan in hand.

Part of the equation is if the basin goes to a regional transportation system, what would that look like. The East Shore Express based in Incline Village is growing in popularity and may become permanent. That would make having a transportation site there be logical as well. TART is the North Shore transit agency. That entire fleet is CMG. The facility is at Cabin Creek on Highway 89 outside of the Lake Tahoe Basin.

Another component is that TTD offices are currently inside of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency offices in Stateline. If the bus garage were to move down the road to the KMS site, so could the employees.