Traffic Jam!

It's the bane of our summer existence at The Lake: Traffic jams. At certain chokepoints around The Basin, summertime-fun grinds to a halt in a sea of taillights and belching exhaust. Can anything be done to ease Tahoe's peak-time traffic? Herein we examine three aspects of the problem: Tahoe City Wye, the nexus of congestion between the Truckee River corridor and West Shore; Highway 50's stop-and-go journey through South Lake Tahoe; and the possibility that waterborne transport might regain part of its historic importance at The Lake.

Tahoe City: Gauntlet or Gateway?

by Laura Read

When John Betts moved to Tahoe City in 1974 to work in his brother's welding shop, the landscaping at the Tahoe City "wye" featured little more than a couple of raw dirt mounds, the result of a stalled beautification project. The 20-year-old Betts was enjoying success as a metal wildlife sculptor. Musing about the sad welcome the mounds presented to Lake Tahoe visitors, he proposed making an artwork larger than anything he'd done before, one that would require collaboration and support from all corners of the community. Several months later, scores of people dug holes, poured foundations, and erected Betts' project: a metal sculpture depicting three entwined trout. The work was lauded, and Betts' enjoyed brief folk-hero status.

Thirty years later, despite the presence of the cheerful fish, the Tahoe City wye remains a town blemish. The problem is now not visual however, but functional. The area that was once a summer encampment for the Washoe Tribe is now, during those same months, an often-congested confluence of cars, trucks, pedestrians and cyclists. People don't look at Betts's fish anymore; their eyes are on the traffic.

"It is one of the most difficult congestion points in the whole Lake Tahoe Basin," says Steve Teshara, executive director of the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association (NLTRA). "Fanny Bridge carries more traffic than any single point around the Basin. It is mind-boggling how much traffic uses that little confined space."

The wye merges 2 California state highways, 2 side roads, 6 crosswalks, a traffic signal, the Truckee River, Fanny Bridge, commercial businesses and parking lots. From the northwest, California State Route 89 is the most direct route from Interstate 80 to Tahoe City and, over the course of a year, carries the greatest volume of cars into the Basin. The stretch of 89 to the south carries all of West Shore's traffic. From the northeast, California SR 28 arrives and terminates at the wye signal. South of the signal before Fanny Bridge, 2 side roads enter the picture. Up to 26,500 vehicles use the area every day during summer weekends and in August, and up to 540 bicycles and pedestrians have been observed in a peak hour. West Shore traffic queues can stretch over 2 miles, according to studies completed recently by LSC Transportation Consultants.

"The key issue is that our single most popular visitor destination is also the site of our heaviest traffic activity," says engineer Gordon Shaw, principal of LSC.

The chaos confuses people, especially first-time visitors, who occasionally don't realize they've reached The Lake. "They show up at the visitor's center asking, ‘Where's Lake Tahoe?'" Teshara says. "It has impacted the willingness of people during certain times of year to go to Tahoe City, to spend money and enjoy the amenities such as Commons Beach. That hurts business, affects the town's vitality and brings a certain negative image to Tahoe City."

Shaw's studies seem to confirm Teshara's statement. "Over the past eight years, overall traffic numbers in the peak summer on the North Shore are down about six percent," says Shaw. "If you look at traffic patterns, they [visitors] may visit once, but they're not spending a lot of time on the North Shore."

Even with fewer visitors, the congestion at the wye has not appeared to ease. Solutions, either short- or long-term, are as multi-pronged as the problems; certainly not as simple as raising a monument to fish. Agencies involved in sussing it all out include the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the League to Save Lake Tahoe, the NLTRA, Placer County and others. A partnership of agencies, nonprofits and private businesses called the Truckee North Tahoe Transportation Management Association meets monthly to examine lake-wide transportation issues.

A few simple steps have created initial progress. A wintertime traffic cone system during ski area rush hours has added an extra lane through part of Tahoe City. At summer peak times, a California Highway Patrol officer directs pedestrians and bicyclists across the otherwise perilous Fanny Bridge crosswalk. Cones and ropes direct pedestrians to the crosswalk and keep people from accidentally stepping into traffic off the bridge's slim sidewalk. This summer, Caltrans will install a pedestrian-activated stoplight at the bridge.

Real long-term solutions are trickier. Fanny Bridge was built in 1928 and upgraded in 1988. Caltrans has declared that by 2015, the bridge will be too weak to support the largest trucks delivering to West Shore businesses. The agency may either replace the bridge or realign 89 and build a new bridge downstream about one-fourth of a mile. According to Shaw, a rebuilt bridge would have to be bigger than the existing one to satisfy Caltrans' design requirements. Its new footprint would eat up nearby trees and commercial parking spaces. Alternatively, the newly realigned 89 would pass through a recreation spot that is dear to locals' hearts—the US Forest Service 64 Acres site. From the standpoint of flowing more traffic more easily through this area, the new alignment would be the cleanest, most efficient solution, Shaw says, because it would decrease travel distances by as much as a half-mile and reduce the current West Shore backup. This might be especially true if authorities install a roundabout in place of a traffic light, a solution that has worked well in nearby Truckee.

But a new downstream bridge and 89 realignment isn't palatable to everyone. The League to Save Lake Tahoe opposes the building of new roads, believing that the money is better spent getting people out of their cars. "The best solution to the congestion problem at the Fanny Bridge/wye intersection is to reduce the number of automobiles that are entering into and driving around the Tahoe Basin in the first place," says John Friedrich, the League's program director. "We need to give people more options to visit and commute by bus, train, bicycle and foot. More public education is needed to explain the relationship between driving our cars and the degradation of The Lake."

In the meantime, vehicles stuck in the congested traffic at the wye and at other chokepoints of the Basin continue to foul the air. "Studies show that the greatest source of nitrogen in the Tahoe Basin is vehicles—about 60 percent," says Dave Roberts, an environmental scientist with the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board. "The more we can do to help manage traffic around here, the better for Lake Tahoe."

Tailpipes emit nitrous oxide, which feeds algae when combined with phosphorous. The phosphorous is delivered by dust and dirt stirred up by cars and carried by air, erosion and runoff into The Lake. Recent monitoring results show that particulate pollution in the air is highest during rush hour, Roberts says.

Whatever the solution to the congestion at the Tahoe City wye, it won't be implemented soon. "It takes a lot of time to get anything done in the Tahoe Basin," Teshara says. "State funding has also fallen well behind what is needed to improve, repair and make roads more efficient, and improve environmental impacts. The state has been a missing player, and that has further delayed the key projects."

Major improvements will require study, environmental review, public input, more layers of study, review and input, and finally decisions. This spring, the 89 realignment environmental impact report was stalled by lack of funds.

One thing is certain, many people care deeply about the future of the wye. Glenn Campbell, who with his wife, Jenn, owns the Dam Café near Fanny Bridge, has lived and worked at the wye since the two moved to Tahoe City from the Eastern United States four years ago. He believes that, despite the traffic, the spot has "magic."

"We are at a nexus point, a gateway," he says. "Some of the finest people I've ever met walk through our door, people who represent the spirit of the West with openness, kindness and a spirit of adventure."

It is that kind of spirit—an openness to new ideas and the adventurous spirit to follow them through—that will be needed over the next decade by the people guiding the improvements to the Tahoe City wye.

Freeing the Flow on South Shore

by Connie Dale

Ask a visitor or a local what the least enjoyable aspect of Tahoe's South Shore in summer is, and the chances are very good that he or she will say "traffic jams." In August, when visitors are pouring into town on Friday evening or leaving town on Sunday morning, traffic often comes to a complete standstill along portions of Highway 50. (Winter traffic snarls are more episodic, but when a winter storm arrives during the weekend or there is an accident on Echo Summit, the traffic tie-up can extend from Stateline to Placerville.)

Unlike North Shore, where traffic problems tend to focus on a few specific points—Tahoe City, Crystal Bay and parts of Truckee—South Lake Tahoe's traffic jams can stretch for miles, right across the city and up over the mountains toward Placerville.

There are those who believe that all would flow smoothly over Echo Summit if only Highway 50 were widened from two to four lanes from South Lake Tahoe all the way to Ice House. Others have proposed the construction of a monorail or tram to carry visitors in and out of The Basin. And then there are those who stand by the idea that forgoing Echo Summit all together by digging a tunnel through the mountain is the best solution.

Whatever the merits of these big ideas, none of them are likely to happen. Aside from their enormous costs, both the League to Save Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Club oppose any increase in vehicular traffic in The Basin; indeed, they favor a reduction. Cars have been shown to contribute to The Lake's diminishing clarity through both their exhaust pollutants and the road dust they kick up.

Another big idea—bringing back commercial air service to South Lake Tahoe—is also unlikely. City council member Ted Long believes that "conservatively estimated... an airport with charter and commercial service would take 200,000 cars off our roads." While some, including Long, believe this traffic solution to be within grasp, others foresee the economics of commercial air service requiring either a very large subsidy for South Lake Tahoe flights or a repeal of the 1970s deregulation legislation, neither of which appears on the horizon.

What is apparently on the horizon is a roundabout at the south "Y." The South Lake Tahoe City Council appears to be moving toward installing ONE in place of the current four-way stoplights. In May of 2005, the council unanimously voted to begin planning the roundabout after receiving a very positive feasibility report. After obtaining feedback from Caltrans for a Project Study Report, the city must now look for consultants to address various issues before the planning continues. And while city staff hopes that construction could begin in the summer of 2007, Shaw of LSC Transportation Consultants believes final results to be yet several years away.

Shaw is one of the most knowledgeable transportation experts in the region and an advocate of the Y roundabout for "a whole variety of reasons," he says. "It would not only move traffic through the intersection more efficiently day and night but would reduce the accident rate and air pollution from idling vehicles and provide important urban design benefits."

Shaw also believes that traffic congestion at two of South Shore's other bottlenecks could be addressed: Stateline and Tahoe Keys Boulevard. At Stateline, he favors a long-considered plan to move the highway out of the Casino Core toward the mountain. This would improve traffic flow, he says, and make the conditions much more attractive to pedestrians and cyclists. At the intersection of Tahoe Keys Boulevard and Highway 50, Shaw believes an additional right turn lane from Tahoe Keys Boulevard would help.

Like many community and business leaders on South Shore, Shaw is also hopeful that public transit will be improved. He is not optimistic, however, that South Shore residents will be willing to tax themselves—as mountain resort communities such as Aspen, Vail and Park City have done—in order to provide substantial expansion of public transit services. "Given limited funding availability and the environmental issues of new facilities, it's difficult to see how large investments with separate right of ways can be accomplished in Tahoe," he says.

In a recent report commissioned by Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA), LSC recommended several transit improvements they believe are feasible. One of these is waterborne transit from the bottom of Ski Run Boulevard to Tahoe City and other locations (see "Water Ways," page 83). Another is a public transit service connecting Sacramento with the South Shore that would serve skiers in the winter and those seeking recreation and gaming destinations in the summer.

The report also recommended a vanpool for casino employees and other workers who live in the Carson City, Minden and Gardnerville areas and a summer-season around-The-Lake bus service. The summer-only service "would have a variety of benefits... including a reduction in the current auto traffic-making recreational trips around The Lake... and help in addressing the seasonal parking problems both along the East Shore and in the Emerald Bay area." Putting these four proposals into effect would take a somewhat substantial initial investment (identified as $3.5 million in the report) and continuing operating-cost subsidies.

The good news for South Shore is that there are feasible solutions on the table that could ease peak-time traffic snarls. But their implementation still lies somewhere down the road. In the meantime, locals caught in traffic might try giving it all a positive spin. For one thing, it means that visitors are still braving the congestion to come here! And, it may be surprising to learn, it really hasn't gotten much worse over the years. Despite the rapid population growth in California's Central Valley, Caltrans numbers indicate that peak month, average daily traffic at the Highway 50 and State Route 89 intersection in Meyers decreased 27 percent between 1994 and 2004. South Shore, as a whole, experienced a 15.3 percent decrease in peak month, average daily traffic during those 10 years. If they build a casino in Shingle Springs, some locals might find themselves longing for the good old days of traffic jams.