Letter: South Lake Tahoe Chamber is concerned about pending approval of Loop Road

The following is a letter from Duane Wallace, past president of the South Tahoe Chamber of Commerce to the Tahoe Transportation District Board. He outlines the concerns their Chamber has expressed about the US 50 South Shore Community
Revitalization Project (Loop Road) EIR process and content.

"It is on the fastest track I've ever seen," he said of the Loop Road project.

Dear Chair Teshara and Commission Members,

Our Chamber of Commerce has had ongoing concerns from the inception of this By Pass project. Unfortunately, many of our concerns remain. We sincerely hope that the people of South Lake Tahoe are listened to as your agency goes forward with this project.

Rush to approval: The apparent rush for approvals is causing us to reserve the right to extend and revise our remarks. There will be we are sure, many more questions and challenges to the document. Your current schedule appears to be designed for purposes other than obtaining any and all comments and ideas regarding this extremely controversial issue. Given time we will be more specific. Thoroughness might help avoid the lawsuits and initiatives that are sure to come given the speed at which you are planning to proceed. We are requesting more time to study this huge document.

Parking: For the record, the parking element by itself makes the document environmentally insufficient. It appears to not recognize that the parking element in what we locals have referred to as the “Black Hole” is already not correct. It appears that each new phase of that project uses the same small group of parking spaces as if they are for that phase only when it reality they will all rely on them as a group. So in our opinion the environmental element is based on a false base of parking analysis. The area is already lacking and by not addressing the lack of parking will not only frustrate our guests but will cause the circling effect of traffic circling the area in search of parking. The recent decision of the casinos to charge high parking fees is real time proof. In fact, the Y businesses have seen an increase in business as a result which shows at least one extra VMT event of people going to Stateline and then leaving frustrated and driving back to the Y. We are aware that TRPA has an overall plan to limit parking in our community to force tourists and locals into mass transit. Besides the complete impracticality for reasons that we will provide in our follow up communications, the funds simply never have been nor, will they be there to have a transit system that will allow for the plan to succeed. The goal is to reduce the number of guests visiting our community. The traffic jams keep the current busses from being on time making employees late for work, especially during holidays and construction season. The Parking element in our opinion is a flawed environmental analysis.

Timing and Economy: There is a perfect storm of road projects arriving in the same time frame. Inside the City the Highway 50 project is still going to be holding up traffic. Sierra Blvd a main street used for going around road work will be under complete construction. The Roundabout in Meyers will be stopping traffic just as they enter the Basin and as if that isn’t enough the Highway 50 bridge project over Echo Summit will be diverting traffic causing hours of delay prior to cars getting here with idling hydrocarbons at their worst. Then adding this project over four to five years may devastate our economy, the economic study previously done showed twelve years needed in order to recover from this project. Can we afford perhaps two decades when all the projects are combined?

Community will: 60.5% of the voters of South Lake Tahoe voted to have a say on this project. A survey of 3,000 voters during this election season simply asked if the voters were for or against this by-pass project. 65.3% said they would vote no despite the tremendous number of positive ads purchased by the TTD over the past few years. There will most likely be lawsuits and further initiatives that should give Caltrans pause. Our City does have a tremendous say in the project. That will include but not be limited to amending the housing element, granting easements, probably having to raise the local match to the federal funds through tax increases. Then there is imminent domain that needs a 4/5ths vote of the City Council. The City will also have to abandon city streets and accept a U.S. freeway to go through a neighborhood.

Housing and Hispanic Neighborhood: The law allows the agency to pay renter’s funds to go away to find a place elsewhere. Since there are no active bidders for replacement housing the agency may take the easy route to payoffs instead of doing what they said would be housing built first. The new freeway will completely divide a mostly ethnic neighborhood. If the renters move away it could cost the Bijou School up to half a million dollars at $5,000 per student per year. The possibility of a discrimination in housing suit. The replacements would not add to our housing stock but possibly just replace it. That would divert resources from our current efforts to actually add housing.

Utilities: STPUD, and the gas and electric companies will have to divert up to perhaps $20 million dollars collectively to replace and relocate their lines. In the case of STPUD we can see a loss of several years of fire flow protection and hydrants due to having to stop to design and build their pipes and facilities in the proposed area. Will the rate payers have to pay or will the project?

Sincerely,
Duane Wallace,
Past President
South Tahoe Chamber of Commerce