Transportation

Everyone who lives anywhere near the Lake is at an elevation of at least 6225 feet.  That means, among other things, that our daily temperatures and road conditions limit bicycling to perhaps six months of the year (May - October).  For the rest of the year, we either walk (or trudge, if there's snow) to and from our destinations.  Unless we need travel more than about a mile.  Then we have to rely on either personal cars, public transit or private conveyance (taxis, limos).  All of these run on gasoline, except for most of the buses, which use natural gas.  All of the snow plows, which make road travel possible in the winter, use gasoline.  Every tourist or part-time resident gets here by car, bus, train or airplane, or some combination of these.

While there are some hybrid vehicles and a few all electrics on the road, virtually all of Tahoe's transportation needs are met primarily by petroleum and secondarily be natural gas.  To state the obvious: Neither of these occurs naturally in the Tahoe area.  We have to import all the gasoline, diesel, natural gas (and for that matter, electricity) that we use for transportation.  Making this situation more difficult is that there is very limited public transportation in the Tahoe area.  For example: Try traveling from the SF Bay area by train to Incline Village, or South Lake Tahoe.  This requires either hiring a taxi or taking one or more long bus rides.  Any major increase in oil prices will have a very detrimental effect of Tahoe transportation: both because life becomes more expensive where our visitors life, and because it becomes more expensive and time consuming to get here and travel about while visiting.

There are no simple answers to dealing with the Tahoe area's strong reliance on imported fossil fuels.  In the winter, life would be very difficult if the snow plows and school buses could not easily be fueled.  Many residents would face extreme hardship if they could not easily afford or find gasoline.  Buying food and getting to medical appointments would be very challenging.  People who work in the Tahoe community, but live in Reno or Carson City, would have trouble getting to their jobs.

But because there is no "immediate emergency", it's very difficult to lobby for improved public transportation.  Yet that's what will be needed if, or rather when, the price of gasoline and diesel means that increasing numbers of residents will no longer be able to afford private motor cars.  If we want to keep the Tahoe area as a year round natural resort, retreat and just destination for tourists and vacationers, we need to think much harder about how we can develop and support robust, reliable and affordable systems of transportation.  There is no magic bullet - this is a hard problem.