pedestrians

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - On the heels of the banning of electric scooters in many cities, Governor Jerry Brown of California has signed a bill that mandates helmets for users only if they are under the age of 18 and if the scooter goes above 15 miles per hour.

The bill, authored by Republican Assemblyman Heath Flora of Ripon, was written to encourage scooter use to alleviate congestion on the state's roads and meet climate change goals of reducing car emissions.

The law takes effect Jan. 1, 2019.

Construction is now underway on Forest Service Road 1202, known as Fountain Place Road, to replace the existing six foot culvert with a 30-foot bridge nd improve access by removing trees, patching asphalt, constructing infiltration basins and installing an 18-inch culvert.

The road is closed to vehicle traffic at Saxon Creek. There is a detour available for bicycles and pedestrians but no vehicles are allowed until the project is finished. The upper section of the road may be accessed from Powerline Road (12N08) to Saxon Tie Road (12N17).

There are still trout in the Lake Tahoe Basin, but soon there will no longer the large trout sculpture that for years has greeting people to the town of North Lake Tahoe.

The iconic 21-foot trout sculpture has been sitting in the island intersection between State Route 89 and State Route 28 along with the Williamson Tree and Rotary Club flagpole.

Single lane closures on State Route 28 will resume on Monday, April 30 as the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) starts the third year of their shared use path and water quality project with traffic safety improvements near Sand Harbor.

Many Nevada schoolchildren will take part in organized events that promote walking or bicycling to school on Nevada Moves Day, held March 21.

Walking and bicycling to school events are planned for Carson City, Clark, Washoe, Lyon and many other counties across the state. Children not taking part in an organized school event are encouraged to involve their families in safely walking or bicycling to school on Nevada Moves Day and throughout the year.

Highway 50 through South Lake Tahoe serves a lot of functions, from a local road for commuters both on bicycles and in cars, to a major highway to transport visitors through the city.

The Nevada Departments of Transportation and Public Safety are reminding Nevadans to share the road after Nevada pedestrian traffic deaths rose in 2017 amid a decline in overall statewide traffic deaths.

In 2017, Douglas County had a rise in all deaths on the road: Fatal crashes up from 5 to 9, fatalities up from 5 to 11, alcohol fatal crashes up from 1 to 2, and number of fatalities in those crashes up from 1 to 3.

The Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) will be wrapping up their two major Lake Tahoe projects for the season over the coming weeks. Crews are working diligently to complete all that they can this construction season before heavy winter weather sets in and makes construction infeasible. Both projects will return with construction next spring.

U.S. 50 Logan Creek Slope Stabilization Project

Ever since we moved to South Lake Tahoe thirty eight years ago, we have been proud to call this city our home. Between our community spirit of caring and sharing, excellent schools, and the inspiring nature of the Lake and Mountains, we are truly fortunate to live in such a special place. We recently hosted our foreign exchange student from twenty years ago and we were proud to show him all of the community upgrades such as Heavenly Village, Lakeview Commons, Harrison Avenue, South Tahoe High School, and the new Whole Foods project.

When I ran for City Council, I ran on a platform of repairing and maintaining our local roads in South Lake Tahoe. I knew our community needed a solution to fix the dangerous potholes and cracks that endanger drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. After much planning and thought, I voted yes to place Measure C, a half-cent sales tax measure, on the November 7, 2017 ballot to fix our roads once and for all.

Due to anticipated heavy holiday traffic near Incline Village this Labor Day weekend, the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) has put work on hold at the State Route 28 shared-used path Saturday, Sept. 2 through Monday, Sept. 4.

NDOT and Granite Construction officials timed current work to be at a point where State Route 28 could be accessible in both directions for the weekend. Work will remain in progress through Friday, Sept. 1 and will resume on Tuesday, Sept. 5 at 7:00 a.m.

The community is invited to take part in a free fun walk, run and ride celebrating the upcoming opening of the last leg of the Interstate 580 Carson City Freeway, the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) announced.

While the freeway isn't scheduled to open to vehicles until August, NDOT is going to have an opening ceremony to pedestrians, runners and cyclists on Saturday, July 22 at 9:00 a.m. Participants can arrive at any time from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. for a self-paced experience on the new freeway.

Stateline, Nevada – The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Governing Board on Wednesday unanimously approved the 2017 Regional Transportation Plan, Linking Tahoe. The long-term transportation plan is reviewed and updated every four years as a blueprint to prioritize investments to improve Lake Tahoe’s transportation system over the next 20-plus years.

As a national treasure offering world-class recreation opportunities, Lake Tahoe is one of the most popular outdoor destinations in Northern California and Nevada. And sometimes, being popular has its challenges.

Tahoe’s limited roadways become congested during times of peak visitation, when thousands of people who live in nearby metropolitan areas get in their cars to drive up to our small mountain communities. Suddenly, a road system designed for 55,000 residents must handle four to five times that many cars on an average busy day.

Sierra Boulevard is about to get a whole new look that will include a better experience for bicyclists and pedestrians, streetlights and water quality improvements.

During Tuesday's South Lake Tahoe City Council meeting, NCE, Inc. was awarded a contract to design the project which will run from Barbara Avenue to Palmira Avenue. They will be paid up to $610,110.

Twenty-five years ago, I finished my graduate work in Oregon and moved to Northern Nevada for a planning position at TRPA. Having spent a large part of my youth hiking and camping at Tahoe and in the Sierra, the move felt like coming home.

Approximately $158 million was spent on Lake Tahoe water quality improvement projects around Lake Tahoe in 2016, and Caltrans is not done.

In 2017 two major projects will get underway, one on each end of the lake.

During the busy 2016 season, Caltrans and its contractors completed work on two projects on State Highway 89 and made significant progress on a third.

What happened in 2016:

Construction on the new three mile shared-use path from Incline Village to Sand Harbor has ended for the season.

During this year's phase one, crews built an underpass beneath the highway to bring the upcoming shared use path from the east to west side of the road near the Flume Trail. In addition, work began on the three new parking areas located near the Ponderosa Ranch and Tunnel Creek Café that will provide safer options for the one million recreationists who visit the area each year. This year’s efforts also included the relocation of a sewer (effluent) pipe near Hidden Beach.

It is an exciting time to live on the South Shore – during a critical point in our region’s evolution and potential. It is time to set our course: moving away from bickering and blaming, exclusionary special interests and single-industry dominance to consensus-building and proactively choosing progress. Whether we live in Nevada or California, everyone benefits from uniting towards a sustainable vision for the South Shore.

Over the past three Halloweens there have been a total of six traffic deaths and 417 crashes during the past three Halloweens in Nevada, so the Nevada Highway Patrol (NHP) and Nevada Department of Public Safety (NDOT) has joined together to remind both drivers and pedestrians to be safe.

The 2007 Douglas County Transportation Plan did not address any needs in the lake portion of the county, and the newly completed 2016 plan doesn't as well though it discusses a potential gondola from the base of Kingsbury Grade to Heavenly Mountain Resort.

The results of 2016's Douglas County Transportation Master Plan update will be presented during a public meeting on October 20 at 6:00 p.m. in the C.V.I.C. Hall.
Parsons Corporation, the organization which prepared the update, will give the presentation.

The South Lake Tahoe Police Department (SLTPD) will step up their pedestrian safety enforcement operations during the month of September as part of “California Pedestrian Safety Month.”

With a rapidly increasing number of pedestrians being killed and injured on roadways in the state of California, the Senate passed a resolution to bring attention to the 813 pedestrians killed on California roadways in 2015 alone. This was nearly 25 percent of all roadways deaths in the state, up from 17 percent just ten years earlier.

A two-three year project to create a three-mile shared-use path as well as enhance safety, accessibility and water quality on State Route 28 officially got underway Friday with a groundbreaking ceremony at Sand Harbor. Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval led the festivities that will improve the busy and narrow highway which sees more than 2.5 million vehicles and 2,000 pedestrians and bicyclists.

The path will run from the south end of Incline Village to Sand Harbor State Park.

A 4,000 acres project in the North Lake Tahoe area is underway to thin trees in the forests to be both fire safe by reducing fuels, and to keep the forest healthy.

The latest project in the Incline Village area started last week on approximately 355 acres of National Forest System lands above Incline Village. Mechanical cut-to-length (CTL) tree removal will take place on USFS urban lots and in areas adjacent to communities over the next several months and some areas will be closed for public safety.