Some neighbors around Lake Tahoe have raised concerns about transportation and its environmental impact, particularly regarding tourism.

The conversation has been happening for a long time. On Friday, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Legislative Oversight Committee had a conversation about some of the difficulties they are facing and possible solutions to improve transportation around Tahoe basin.

"Our number one challenge in Tahoe is that we're a small rural community on the weekdays, and we're like a big city on the weekends, so servicing the demands of our tourist-based economy is very expensive," said Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Executive Director Julie Regan. 

The Lake Tahoe region has a uniquely complex transportation planning landscape due to its $5 billion seasonal tourism outdoor recreation industry, which impacts the environment, local communities, mobility, air, and water quality.

"We do have a long way to go to make Tahoe easier to get around in the peak summer months, in particular," said Regan. 

A coalition of private and public entities, led by TRPA, collaborated on a regional transportation plan; however, there is disagreement regarding its construction.

"Connecting the dots of all the entities that have been relied upon to make the plan recommendations, from Basin-wide nonprofits to economic consultants, is an arduous task," said Lake Tahoe resident Ellie Waller. 

Lake Tahoe resident Dana Tibbetts believes the TRPA fails to take evacuation routes seriously.

"TRPA continues to shortcut or bypass altogether comprehensive and environmental impact reports and the roadway-by-roadway evacuation capacity assessments required for every new project. Instead, they rely on checklist approvals and rubber stamps to push through large-scale projects that anticipate massive increases in tourism," said Tibbetts. 

TRPA sets environmental thresholds for different categories, like water, air, and transportation. They currently need to meet one of their crucial transportation thresholds.

"One of those transportation standards is around vehicle miles traveled, and we're actually updating that whole system at the end of the year. So, we'll know what our attainment status is in just a few months.

As we have reported, a big challenge for Lake Tahoe is that around 50% of the workforce lives outside the basin and commutes every day. TRPA is working on building affordable workforce housing to ameliorate that problem.

The Regional Transportation Plan aims to use sustainable public transportation to connect communities within the basin and reduce private automobile use.