Lane restrictions and work hours to increase on Hwy 50 in South Lake Tahoe

Work on the $56 million Highway 50 project in South Lake Tahoe is suspended for the Labor Day weekend, but once the holiday traffic leaves drivers can expect longer delays when lane restrictions are increased.

Starting Tuesday, Sept. 5 at 12:01 a.m., contractor Security Paving Inc. may reduce the highway to one open lane iSn each direction around the clock until 11 a.m. on Fridays.

Beginning Sept. 10, work will be around the clock from midnight Sunday to 11 a.m. Friday each week, with weekends free of construction. Motorists can expect delays of up to 30 minutes.

Construction on the water-quality improvement project is taking place from the “Y” intersection with State Highway 89 to Winnemucca Avenue this season, which is the first of three phases. The project will eventually extend to Trout Creek, covering two miles of the highway with new drainage filtration systems, curbs and gutters, new sidewalks, a wider highway to include 6-foot shoulders on each side, and a new roadway surface.

Completion is expected in fall 2019.

The project is part of Caltrans’ commitment to the Lake Tahoe Environmental Improvement Program (EIP) to help protect Lake Tahoe’s world-famous clarity by filtering stormwater runoff of pollutants before it enters the lake. It will be the last of 22 EIP projects Caltrans has built on state highways all around the Lake Tahoe Basin.

For more information on Caltrans’ highway projects in the Basin, go to TahoeRoads.com, follow @TahoeRoads on Twitter or "like" Tahoe Roads on Facebook. For real-time traffic, click on Caltrans’ QuickMap quickmap.dot.ca.gov/ or download the QuickMap app on iTunes or Google Play.