On a late spring afternoon last year, Jason Jurss found himself white-knuckled in the passenger seat of his truck, watching his 16-year-old daughter nervously navigate a blind curve on Nevada State Route 28.
Their driving lesson nearly ended in disaster.
“She was almost in a bad accident because someone was parked out about 4 1/2 feet into the road,” said Jurss, owner of Happy Tiers Bakery in Incline Village. “Then, people came walking out from behind a vehicle. … We were forced toward the center. She pretty much threaded the needle to keep from totaling our truck.”
Jurss’ story is just one example of a growing Lake Tahoe-traffic issue: Summer weekend backups stretch for miles; drivers park on shoulders near popular trailheads and beaches; and traffic has ballooned in recent years.
The Lake Tahoe Destination Stewardship Plan from 2023 estimates that Tahoe sees 2 million unique overnight visitors per year, plus many more “untethered” visitors who pass through or use trails and beaches. (Both types of visitors might be present on multiple days, which is why you’ll see figures out there for “visitor days” in the 15 million range.)
The number of residents in the Tahoe Basin, around 55,000, hasn’t risen drastically in recent decades—only 6% from 1990 to 2020, according to Census data. The visitor count has increased much faster. According to the most recent data from the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, daily traffic counts at U.S. Route 50 over Spooner Summit—one of seven major access points to the basin—increased 43% from 2009 to 2022. Caltrans data (as reported by a transport expert in the Tahoe Daily Tribune) shows the two major North Shore highways—SR 89 and SR 267—carried about 24,800 vehicles per day in 2022, a 7% increase from pre-pandemic counts.
Over the same time period, the road infrastructure—mostly narrow two-lane highways—has remained unchanged.
These high-volume corridors experience routine slowdowns, spiking higher on peak summer days, as lake visitors funnel through choke points like the roundabouts in Tahoe City and Kings Beach, or the narrow, two-lane sections of SR 28 along the East Shore.
Congestion hot spots are most pronounced in summer. Weekend traffic backing up for a mile at the Sand Harbor parking entrance on SR 28 has become a familiar sight.
“The goal isn’t to drive more visitation. It’s really to change how existing people are moving around now and shifting them out of their automobile. We want to shift people out of their vehicles to buses, bikes, trails and feet.”
Devin Middlebrook, government affairs manager for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency
For Jurss and many other full-time residents of the basin, the surge has affected them personally. During the pandemic, his bakery shifted from events to deliveries, covering a wide radius.
“I would need to leave at 4 a.m. to be able to get everybody’s items there,” he said. Since then, the problem has shifted from a temporary, seasonal disruption to year-round congestion, he said.
For Jurss and other business owners, Tahoe traffic is both an indicator of, and a deterrent to, the customer base on which he depends.
“We feed our family by selling cups of coffee and cakes,” he said. “So, the more people coming through, the better. But if people are apprehensive to travel the routes, then it actually inhibits business to have more people.”
A patchwork of stakeholders and strained roads
Devin Middlebrook, government affairs manager for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA), has spent the past decade working to bring dozens of competing jurisdictions and agencies together to solve the region’s infrastructure issues.
“Transportation at Tahoe has always been a major challenge,” Middlebrook said. “(Much of our transportation) system was built in the 1950s and 60s. It was really a system that was built during the time when auto was the primary mode of travel, and people were getting out and enjoying the great outdoors through driving. … Now, 72% of stormwater pollution that harms Lake Tahoe comes from our urban environment and roadway system.”
Middlebrook explained that the TRPA, created in 1969 through a bi-state compact between California and Nevada, now serves as a regional convener, coordinating more than 80 public and private partners to align on environmental goals. The agency also authors a 25-year regional transportation plan every four years. The latest version, Connections 2050, envisions scalable, eco-friendly transit options that de-emphasize car travel.
“The goal isn’t to drive more visitation. It’s really to change how existing people are moving around now, and shifting them out of their automobile,” Middlebrook said. “We want to shift people out of their vehicles to buses, bikes, trails and feet.”
Why TART matters
A cornerstone of TRPA’s vision is the Tahoe Truckee Area Regional Transit system, or TART. Serving North Tahoe and Truckee, TART’s services include fixed-route buses, paratransit, and the app-based TART Connect microtransit shuttle system.
“TART Connect is our first-mile, last-mile connection to the main TART line, the big buses that run from Incline to Truckee and basically all points in between,” said Andy Chapman, president of Travel North Tahoe Nevada, a regional destination-marketing organization. “It helps get people from their home or hotel to the main TART bus line. But we don’t have sustainable funding for it.”
Chapman said TART Connect, currently in its fourth year, was originally funded through a patchwork of partners. At its peak, it ran 16 hours a day and served mostly local residents. Today, due to budget constraints, it runs only six hours a day. “Eighty percent of the ridership is residential,” Chapman said. “Kids use it to get to school or the beach, seniors to their doctor’s appointments. Residents use it to go out to dinner or a show and not have to worry about driving home at the end of the night. So, it’s a very popular service.”
Proposed fixes: fees, ferries or an improvement district?
Some policymakers have floated alternative fixes. The Washoe County Commission has considered a visitor fee to fund transportation improvements, though due to legal complications and concerns about equity of access, the proposal has gained limited support.
“Lake Tahoe is a national treasure, owned and enjoyed by the American people and the global audience,” Chapman said. “The idea that you could put gates up and stop people from coming in is not a viable solution.”
Meanwhile, one novel idea has emerged in the form of the hydrofoil ferry announced in 2024, which has generated interest, but would have limited impact, as the service would carry only a few dozen people per day.
One proposal gaining traction is Senate Bill 420, which would allow communities on the Nevada side to form business-improvement districts (BIDs). Under this system, businesses would voluntarily assess themselves and direct the funds toward projects like TART Connect, parking solutions or public beautification.
“It’s not a tax; it’s a business assessment,” Chapman said. “And it’s worked.”
A similar BID in place since 2021 on the California side, managed by the North Tahoe Community Alliance, reportedly generates about $6 million annually. Those funds have supported workforce housing programs, parking infrastructure, and transit services like TART Connect.
However, the proposal has also met skepticism from some residents and watchdogs. In an April 17 op-ed in the Nevada Current, Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos argued that BIDs amount to “a new form of ‘private government,’” levying fees like a tax, but managed by unelected business interests.
“Residents who shop, dine or recreate within a ‘district’ always pay the fee,” she wrote. “Communities effectively subsidize private agendas.”
Tsigdinos directly criticized the TRPA’s involvement in crafting the legislation, and pointed to language from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration explaining how BIDs are fundamentally unequipped to offer long-term solutions to public-transportation issues
“BIDs are not public agencies and cannot be directed to accomplish transportation goals, services or facilities desired by elected officials and agencies,” she wrote.
SB420’s backers say that any BID would require a majority vote of the businesses and ongoing county oversight, with multiple public-input opportunities before anything is finalized.
“If we’re successful with SB 420, we’ll focus investment in four areas: transportation, visitor impact mitigation, downtown core beautification, and year-round economic vitality,” Chapman said. “The businesses are ready to do their part.”
Culture shift on the horizon
While disagreements around funding and logistics persist, many stakeholders agree that encouraging the use of public transport is the best way to address the dangerous gridlock that plagues the Tahoe basin.
Balancing Tahoe’s overwhelmingly tourism-driven economy with environmental and quality-of-life concerns means finding ways to maximize the number of people entering the basin while minimizing the number of cars they’re driving.
However, that solution must also address a fundamental question of culture in Tahoe—and the entire country.
“We Americans love our cars,” Middlebrook said. “But it’s becoming part of Tahoe’s identity to leave the car at home.”
He pointed to initiatives like Tahoe Bike Month, where thousands log miles on two wheels in June. More broadly, he wants both residents and visitors to “live like a local.”
“It’s about drinking Tahoe tap water, not using disposable water bottles, being nice on the trail,” he said. “What visitor doesn’t want to experience that local lifestyle?”
TRPA’s 2050 plan also prioritizes incentives. Placer County is exploring transit-only lanes that would allow buses to bypass traffic.
“If the bus gets there faster than your car, you’ll take the bus,” Middlebrook said.
Evacuation planning also plays a role. With wildfires increasingly common, TRPA’s plan includes forest thinning near highways and parking lots to ensure safer exits during emergencies.
“It’s all interconnected,” Middlebrook said. “If we don’t do things to protect the environmental beauty, then no one will want to come here or live here.”
Jurss agrees. As a father and entrepreneur, he’s seen both the safety risks and economic impacts firsthand.
“Safety matters most,” he said. “But we also need to protect the reason people come to Tahoe in the first place.”
You use the word equity in visiting Lake Tahoe equity infers some type of ownership. Equal access is what you should have said.
this is a hoax it has nothing to do with mitigating traffic it is about money given to unelected officials who will then try to regulate owners of property so tourists have better access, after all is said and done traffic will not change but a lot of money will have changed hands. The Kings Beach corridor is a perfect example of a traffic nightmare, it was fought by locals and supported by the business association and Placer County for dual use development “TAX Money”. Roundabouts have no business there with crosswalks, it was far more efficient before with less accidents. It’s so bad placer has to pay crossing guards in the summer. Stay away from more unelected bureaucrats who just want your money. The real solution is to limit the number of visitors and cars allowed in the basin at any given time. This plan will benefit business and cost local homeowners. After all, if it is a national treasure lets treat it that way as opposed to another business venture.
North Lake Tahoe gets all the money, benefits & attention! TTD supports the North Tahoe Transit – South Tahoe transit has been a loose-goose for many years with piti-service! We can’t even get decent service from Stateline to Sand Harbor – much less anywhere else. The TRPA was established to protect the lake (science), but have no scientists on staff – and instead, are a power seeking nightmare that wants to control everything from housing, planning, annexations, etc – they are a nightmare excuse for saving Lake Tahoe, which was the initial objective!