I love public transit and I love driving my own vehicle. One of those loves has to give.

Public transit works when it is easy to understand the schedule and that schedule works for a person’s plans without too much compromising. Public transit works when it’s easy to access and it goes where you want to go. Public transit works when the price is right; ideally acting as a less expensive alternative to driving oneself.

Public transit at Lake Tahoe (at least the South Shore) has not always been friendly to the rider. Friendly in the sense of convenient.

So, when I took a ride on the Emerald Bay Shuttle in August I was more than pleasantly surprised. This is the inaugural season of this three-month pilot program that was to end Oct. 15, but instead stopped in late September.

Parking in the Emerald Bay area is a nightmare. It used to just be a weekend issue. Now it’s every day for month after month. There just aren’t enough spaces for all the people who want to visit this area. So, they park on Highway 89 even though they are subject to a parking ticket.

With reservations becoming the norm at so many outdoor locales in order to provide a more enjoyable experience for everyone and as a way to manage these delicate resources, it’s likely Tahoe’s must-see locations will be available only this way. Already Sand Harbor has adopted this philosophy.

The following story is an abbreviated version of the story that ran in the Tahoe Mountain News’ September issue.

Tracy Brickwood of Australia rides the shuttle, which means her eyes never have to be on the road and instead can be focused on the scenery like Emerald Bay. (Image: Kathryn Reed)

Francesca Behling is hooked.

“I never imagined going to Emerald Bay without a car,” the South Lake Tahoe resident said. “We all could look at the lake without having to drive.”

Behling and her four out-of-town friends were riding the Emerald Bay Shuttle from the Y transit center to Eagle Falls parking lot. This particular Saturday in August was her first time on the van, which seats 13.

As a proponent of public transit, she hopes this becomes a permanent option.

Driver Dale Cabral says a good number of locals have been his passengers.

For Tracy and Craig Brickwood of Australia it took a quick internet search to figure out how to get to the Emerald Bay area without their vehicle. The couple had driven around the lake the day before and witnessed the nightmare on Highway 89 so they wanted to avoid it.

They easily used the app to book the round trip shuttle, which cost them $10 each. The need for reservations didn’t phase them, as that has been the norm on their travels through U.S. national parks.

When Chris Sorg of Santa Rosa saw a story about the shuttle on his local TV news he knew he and his wife and another couple would be on board. They booked it two days in advance.

The 9am departure was perfect for the foursome.

“Otherwise we would have had to have gotten up much earlier to get parking,” Sorg said.

The chaos outside the front window of the shuttle is what riders are able to avoid. (Image: Kathryn Reed)

The nuts and bolts

While the shuttle hasn’t eliminated the chaos and congestion at Emerald Bay, it is taking a few vehicles off the highway and gives those who don’t want to contend with the parking debacle an opportunity to visit without the hassle.

In the first month 3,240 riders accounted for the 1,025 bookings. (A person can make a reservation for a group.)

Starting points include Sugar Pine Point State Park, Camp Richardson ice cream store and the Y. All drop off at the U.S. Forest Service parking lot at Eagle Falls, which costs $5 to park at if someone had driven there. It costs $10 a day at the Vikingsholm lot, or $3/hour.

Most of the riders (1,699) started at Camp Rich, 852 at Sugar Pine and 689 at the Y.

The shuttles can carry almost 350 people on a weekend day. (More shuttles run Friday-Sunday.)

Considering 1.5 million people visit Emerald Bay every year, with 16,000 going there on busy summer days, this transit program might not even be making a real dent in the problem.

The goal, though, is to start small and expand the offerings, with almost no parking a future possibility.

California Highway Patrol is being paid $10,000 by Sierra State Parks Foundation for special enforcement in the area Friday-Sunday.

In the first four weeks of the shuttle operations, officers issued eight moving violations, 157 parking citations, and had 13 vehicles towed.

Parking tickets per El Dorado County ordinance cost on average $100. Whether this is a deterrent remains to be seen. El Dorado County Supervisor Brooke Laine believes the fines need to be increased.

Riding back to the Y on a Saturday afternoon a CHP officer was placing tickets on multiple vehicles for parking illegally. Some were in areas where it’s posted no parking, some had tires in the lane of traffic.

Earlier this summer Caltrans conducted a road safety audit to determine traffic volumes and pedestrian safety issues in the Emerald Bay area. The shuttle didn’t start until July so Caltrans could ascertain that baseline information, which will be used going forward in making future decisions about this stretch of state highway that it is responsible for.

Downtowner, the company that operates the microtransit service on the South and North shores, operates the Emerald Bay Shuttle. The three-month stint costs $404,000.

Money for the transit project comes from: $150,000 each from League to Save Lake Tahoe and Tahoe Fund, and $100,000 in anticipated fares. The big red water barriers by Inspiration Point cost $30,000; paid for by Tahoe Regional Planning Agency mitigation funds for El Dorado and Placer counties.

Who all is involved

Laine lined up the players who bought into her concept of the Emerald Bay Shuttle. As a lifelong resident of South Lake Tahoe, she is well aware of the problems in this area.

After reading TRPA’s Highway 89 Corridor Management Plan, she came up with the plan. Laine asked Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit Supervisor Erick Walker, Rich Adams with California State Parks, and Caltrans if they had read the study. No was their collective answer. She gave them each a copy.

Laine convened a meeting involving more than 13 agencies on June 27, 2024, that culminated in this pilot because they all agreed there is a parking problem at Emerald Bay.

Caltrans involvement included placement of the physical barriers to prevent illegal parking along the shoulders of Highway 89 and sign installation.

It’s the League that first brought microtransit to South Lake Tahoe in 2018, and has wanted to be part of the Emerald Bay solution for years.

“… the illegal and unsafe roadside parking causes direct and indirect environmental damage. Our reliance on private cars results in sediment and tailpipe emissions clouding the lake, parking on dirt destroys vegetation and adds to erosion of fine sediment into the lake, social trails for dispersed parking causing erosion and results in litter left behind,” Gavin Feiger, the League’s policy director, said. “Getting people out of their cars and on to transit and eventually bikes and walking helps keep Tahoe blue. The roadside parking also creates safety issues and makes the experience of visiting one of the most beautiful places in the country less enjoyable.”

Shuttle driver Dale Cabral, right, tells a rider about the trails. (Image: Kathryn Reed)

What happens next?

Stakeholders will figure out the next steps. Riders are asked to take a survey when their trip is complete, so that information will be part of the equation. For Laine, she is already planning on this trial extending another year or two.

“We are planning on a 2026 pilot project which will add additional barriers to parking illegally, introduce waterborne transit as another way of visiting Emerald Bay, and might also include a reservation system for the limited amount of paid parking allowed on USFS and State Parks parking lots,” Laine said.

CHP Officer Ruth Loehr believes to change human behavior it is going to take education, enforcement, and engineering.

“We need to continue to educate the public regarding the dangers of illegal parking in the area, both from the safety lens, and from an environmental standpoint,” Loehr said. “We must ensure the public is aware of the shuttle program and continue to increase ridership. We have been and will continue to enforce the illegal parking in the area with appropriate enforcement action. Sadly, as soon as we remove a vehicle and continue down the road, another motorist will just take the empty spot. We cannot be everywhere all at once. Physical barriers to eliminate all shoulder parking in the designated no parking areas will go a long way.”

Where the money comes from remains to be seen.

“There is not public money for recreation-focused travel and nonprofits can’t fund it forever so it will need to be funded by ridership and contributions from local entities that are benefiting from the service,” Geiger with the League said.

Still, the League is optimistic a more robust program could alleviate this parking mayhem.

“The 2020 Corridor Plan estimates that up to two-thirds of current visitors to Emerald Bay could shift to transit,” Geiger said. “Over the next few years, we hope to expand the service and ridership along with increased parking restrictions and enforcement to get to the point where the service is self-sustaining.”