BACKGROUND
The TTD Board approved the most recent Short-Range Transit Plan (SRTP) on October 13, 2017, and it was amended on December 15, 2017. Service has undergone significant changes since then, and operational conditions such as labor, funding, regulations, and capital have continued to evolve.
Implementing transit solutions were, and still are, contingent on adequate funding. Prior planning doesn’t always result in moving forward with identified solutions because a funding source must be secured.
The 2017 Plan detailed two futures for transit:
1. Declining service levels as community support for transit continued to evaporate
2. Increased levels of service and system stabilization with robust community investment in public transit.
Tahoe Basin leaders and agencies chose not to act to stabilize funding on multiple occasions. The result of this decision has been a sharp downturn in the provision of public transit, a smaller mode share than before 2017, and an overall leaner system that has been forced to adapt to reality as resources are directed to other endeavors by former funding partners.
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND INFORMATION
TTD championed the implementation of the 2017 Transit Master Plan
The 2017 Short-Range Transit Plan was the first installment of the twenty-year commitment to transit improvements in and around the Lake Tahoe Basin/region.
The 2017 SRTP was developed within the context of the Long-Range Transit Plan and Linking Tahoe: Lake Tahoe Transit Master Plan (TMP), which is aimed at implementing a new vision for transit.
According to detailed cell phone data from 2017, visitors account for 75 percent of all vehicle trips made to the region. This magnitude of visitation translated into a considerable number of vehicles congesting the transportation network (35 million vehicle trips). Infrastructure, then and now, will increasingly be no longer able to handle this volume of vehicles.
Significant goals for the 2017 SRTP were:
To reach a twenty-percent transit mode split target within twenty years
Garner a sixty-million-dollar revenue stream
Establish a regional control center
Address parking deficits