Plan Proposed to Implement Fees for Travelers in the Tahoe Basin

Spencer Cox |
Photo credit: Tahoe Daily Tribune

Lake Tahoe City Council met on Tuesday (9/8) to hear a new proposal from the Tahoe Transportation District (TTD) which could have a significant effect on those who travel through the Tahoe Basin. The proposal is called One Tahoe and its aim is the implementation of fees for every car that enters the Tahoe Basin and possibly Truckee as well.

At the moment, the fees are broken down into two categories: the day-use category, which would charge tourists $4.10 a car; and the commuter category, which would charge commuters $1.06 per car. There is also the potential for a local residents option, which would charge permanent Tahoe residents approximately $7 per month. TTD states that it would then use the revenue from these fees to increase public transportation and construct more transportation infrastructure.

One Tahoe
Photo credit: One Tahoe

The proposed One Tahoe plan has certainly received its fair share of criticism. At the city council meeting yesterday, a number of Tahoe residents voiced their opposition against the initiative and suggested that locals and commuters should be exempted from the fee. The plan was only presented yesterday and as such, Lake Tahoe City Council did not take action.

The One Tahoe initiative has a long road ahead before any concrete action will occur. Currently, the soonest that this plan could be implemented is in 2023. Before then, the TTD must receive bi-state approval from both Nevada and California state-legislatures, as well as overturn a current ban on fees in the Tahoe Basin area.

While the TTD’s intentions may be good, the implementation of fees will undoubtedly prove controversial in the Lake Tahoe community. This is an on-going proposal with updates to come.

Related Articles

14 thoughts on “Plan Proposed to Implement Fees for Travelers in the Tahoe Basin

  1. Wow. Yea, brilliant idea by a board of a bunch of people from the bay who know nothing except how to make traffic worse.

  2. Omg what a terrible idea. I live in nevada and hope this doesn’t happen in nevada. California can’t account for all the taxes they already get from residents , now they are looking for more ways to tax people. No wonder residents are leaving. I just wish they would stop moving to nevada

  3. This is a horrible idea……lets tax people even more than we are already taxed. Tourism is what brings jobs and ultimately taxes, and revenue into the Tahoe basin.
    Why potentially kill the tourism industry that we all ned here.
    Also, most residents who live here cannot afford more.

  4. Another bad CA idea to make everything in the state a fee opportunity for the government with nebulous benefits for taxpayers. Fees like this never decrease or go away; they simply feed the insatiable appetite of a self-serving bureaucracy that once created, can never be abolished or shrunk. I hope voters are not so gullible as to believe this will benefit anyone living and working in the Tahoe Basin.

    1. Well stated. It’s a slippery slope that Tahoe has already started down unfortunately, and it’s only worsening with all of the people moving up due to Covid. Not long before Tahoe becomes a little Bay Area- full of traffic and unfriendly, stuck up people.

  5. Why would you charge a fee for residence or for those who own property? They are not the ones causing the problem. It is the massive influx of tourists. Pass the fee on to the tourist just as there is a fee for hotel use in a transient occupancy tax. This tax could also apply to all the individual rental homes.

  6. Make the fees $10 per single use, or $100 per year, with a dashboard tracer that allows the regulars to breeze past the entrance station, like Bay Area bridges. Funds should also go for more trash management and the like.

  7. I don’t want to pay for public transportation that nobody will use. $84 a year doesn’t seem like much for residents, but I guarantee this will go up and up in future years.

  8. Horrible idea. Considering all state residents and tourons paid for the highways, and not just taxes collected from Basin residents, I would think this would be an egregious example of NIMBYism. Plus a violation of interstate commerce.
    Back east, where tolls are required, an investment has typically been made specifically to provide a fee-for-service. In this case, that relationship wasn’t made up front. Instead, the freely accessible roads were built and now someone wants to collect money off of it because they’re tired of all the visitors. Classic california

    1. California is a garbage state ran by a bunch of libtards. I wish they would break off and start their own country so we could insulate ourselves from their stupid ideas. It’s fun watching a once great state slowly choking itself on its own BS.

  9. Sounds like a Gov boondoggle. Fees will be collected, that money will go into general funds, and poof calstrs/calpers will have it all. This lock down ain’t paying the gov bills…our public pension overlords approve of this fee.

  10. Its probably a good idea. Hopefully they use the fees for something intelligent like building a train loop that goes around the lake. They also need pedestrian stop/go lights in KB. Those new roundabouts are cool but they have created a traffic nightmare!

Got an opinion? Let us know...