RELIABLE INFRASTRUCTURE
Keeping Truckee Functional While at Full Capacity
SPECIAL DISTRICTS AND YOU!
Unlike other towns, many of the services in Truckee are provided by special districts, which are not governed by the Town Council. This presents a challenge in delivering services as the Town Council must negotiate the delivery of these services to residents at the terms determined by the Special Districts and their boards. Here are the following Special Districts and their Service Areas:
TOWN OF TRUCKEE LIMITS
In addition to Special Districts, residents living in Truckee may not actually live within town limits. For example, residents in parts of Sierra Meadows, Martis Valley, and Conifer Drive in Donner Lake are actually residents of Placer County. Residents in Hobart Mills, Juniper Hills and Hirschdale are actually part of Nevada County, as is the Truckee Airport. California state law mandates that town limits cannot supersede existing county boundaries, so while you may “live in Truckee” your local government and services are actually provided by the county.
(Click on the map to view a larger version.)
KEEPING THE LIGHTS ON
Electricity is delivered to Truckee from NV Energy and Liberty Utilities. No electricity is generated in Truckee. NV Energy delivers the power to Truckee via the Cal Substation in Verdi, NV. Once it arrives in Truckee, the Truckee PUD takes over the service obligation and delivers it to the residents. PUD maintains all of their lines in the town and responds for repairs during outages.
NV Energy uses a variety of energy sources to generate electricity, including fossil-fuels, solar, wind, water, and geothermal. Liberty Utilities, however, delivers their electricity to service most of North and West Lake Tahoe, respectively, other than a quick stop in Glenshire.
In the winter, snow shedding onto tree limbs or power lines, and vehicle collisions into transmission poles are the main causes of outages. Outages are more frequent than they have been in years past, but they do not last as long – though they can last for days depending on the severity of the outage and the weather conditions.
In accordance with Governor Brown’s Executive Order B-55-18, which decreed that California will pursue carbon neutral energy by 2045, Truckee needs to determine realistic, clean energy goals that provide reliable energy for our residents by utilizing the natural resources at our disposal.
Town Council should explore avenues to utilize existing solar, wind, and water resources for electricity generation and should solicit cost analysis reports to determine if we could utilize the average 300 days of sunshine per year by building solar arrays on open space developed through partnerships with private landowners, neighboring counties, and the federal government. The Town should work with these partnerships to determine open space that is neglected or underutilized by residents, and provides the best opportunity for power generation without sacrificing the quality of life and recreation for our residents and those in neighboring communities. It may be possible that the utilization of this open space exists outside the scope of existing Truckee town limits and the Council would then be negotiating rates for power delivery.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Since an aspect of the 2025 General Plan was to leverage Truckee to become more attractive to those in the technology, energy, and health fields, Truckee should have reliable telecommunications infrastructure to help accommodate the citizens in town limits. (See Goal ED-3, pp 6-4 through 6-9.)
Area telecommunications utilities, such as Suddenlink, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile should be encouraged to update their existing infrastructure to provide consistent, reliable service to the residents of this area. As we’ve experienced this summer due to over-occupancy, and are experiencing this fall due to repercussions from COVID-19, the telecommunications networks in this area are being taxed by peak demand. The Town Council should look into opportunities to incentivize or facilitate routine update and maintenance of these utilities, so they do not fail when the town is at maximum capacity.
MITIGATING WASTE
Trash removal is performed by Tahoe Truckee Sierra Disposal. Starting in 2018, the Town of Truckee began upgrading residences with 64-Gallon yard waste and recycling carts, aimed at reducing plastic bag use and providing regular, alternating service for recycling and yard/green waste disposal. Prior to the use of the carts, residents were purchasing transparent blue bags for recycling, and opaque teal/green bags for yard waste. The methods of bagging yard waste often became troublesome, whereupon bags were too heavy for removal, were not properly sealed for collection, or were limited to 4 bags per pickup and large amounts would sit on the curb for weeks on end creating an eyesore in the neighborhoods.
There have been some challenges with this program, however and the Town is embarking on a re-education campaign, aimed at instructing full-time residents, second homeowners, and visitors on how to use these carts effectively. The single biggest challenge is ensuring the carts are not left accessible to wildlife, who can spread the trash throughout the neighborhood, or worse, become desensitized to humans and present a viable threat to neighborhoods which often, unfortunately, results in euthanizing our bears. Full-time residents are fully aware of the consequences of negligent trash and waste storage and the resulting impact it has upon area wildlife.
As stated above, Tahoe Truckee Sierra Disposal performs trash removal for the Town of Truckee, among other areas, and takes their collection back to Eastern Sierra Regional Landfill, which is owned and operated by Placer County. For single-can collection for July 1, 2020 – June 30, 2021, The Town of Truckee entered into agreement with TTSD at increased annual rate of $391.22 per residence; this was an increase of roughly $30.82 over the previous year and it equates to about $32.66 per month. Items from TTSD collection are then taken to the Materials Recovery Facility, MRF, to be sorted for recyclable materials and waste. Recyclable materials are then shipped back out for new products and waste is shipped to Lockwood Landfill in Nevada. The Town of Truckee encourages residential and commercial users to continue sorting their recyclable materials to ensure that as much recyclable material is collected from MRF for repurposing.
In contrast, Placer County is rolling out a new program called “One Big Bin” where recycling and waste are combined into the same container and then sorted at MRF. Residents in Placer County are paying between $16.40 and $27.28 per month for up to 2 cans of trash collection. Placer County is citing One Big Bin as an innovative program because it’s reducing the amount of trash collection vehicles necessary to remove the trash and recycling from the service areas, which will also reduce the wear on local roads and the money necessary for repairs and upkeep to the infrastructure. Moreover, Placer County is already employing workers to sort for recycling at MRF.
While the Town of Truckee states that trash fees will continue to increase in the coming years, they do not state what those rates will be. The Town Council should explore other avenues to see if the “One Big Bin” program proves to be more fundamentally efficient than individual sorting through multiple residential waste containers.
ROAD MAINTENANCE & TRAFFIC
The Town of Truckee operates 164 miles of roads across 33 square miles. The Public Works Department works tirelessly in our town maintaining the roads during the summer and providing snow removal operations during the winter. It should be no surprise that the sheer volume of work Public Works undertakes commands a high cost to maintain. The 20/21 budget allocates Public Works $9,127,368 - which includes $3.3 million for snow removal, and $2.2 million for road maintenance, respectively.
Road maintenance during the summer includes routine paving and sealing, drainage upkeep and remediation projects, replacing damaged snow poles, and striping roadways. Winter snow removal includes applying brine to the roads before storms, plow and sand services during storms, grading/snow-blowing operations to manage snow and ice along roadways and shoulders, transporting excess snow into storage ponds for evaporation, and when possible, street-sweeping efforts to remove excess sand laid down during the storms. The amount of punishment our roadways take during the winter requires the efforts by Public Works to restore them during the summer.
The amount of traffic on the roadways also takes its toll. While the planning of Truckee is centered around maintaining the small mountain town feeling, navigating this town during peak traffic episodes is down-right frustrating. Should you need to get from one side of town to another, especially during ski traffic, summer road construction, or parades, cycling events, and other pedestrian heavy events, it requires a thorough understanding of back roads and alternate routes. Mapping applications like Google and Waze have disclosed many of these routes to our visitors, but may not account for roads that do not accommodate through-traffic, or may be blocked by gated communities or fire-access gates.
I would propose Town Council explore and implement the following ideas to increase maneuverability and increase traffic safety in Truckee:
Reducing highway bypass traffic on surface streets, similar to recent efforts at Donner Lake which is restricted to local traffic only. This could be applied to Donner Pass Road from Village Nursery to Northwoods Blvd, to free congestion for local residents and provide access to grocery stores, gas stations, the hospital district, neighborhoods, and other retail stores and restaurants.
Restrict Glenshire Drive for local traffic only from the Truckee River RV Park Gas Station to the intersection of Donner Pass Road.
Summer deployment of removable traffic safety devices, such as speed bumps, on main neighborhood thoroughfares, such as Lausanne Way, Schussing Way, Hansel Avenue, Skislope Way, Alder Creek Road, Pine Forest Rd, Glenshire Drive, Dorchester Drive, The Strand, and Jeffrey Pine Rd.
Work with CalTrans to meter the Hwy 80/SR 89 roundabouts during peak use to ensure that westbound vehicles are staggering use and not staging inside the roundabout, making the roadway impassable.
Connecting Deerfield Drive through to Coldstream Commons to provide another local-only bypass for traffic to connect between Donner Lake and the Deerfield Plaza.
Work with CalTrans to repaint the highway around the old bug station, and include the ½ mile of the missing 3rd travel lane, which would effectively remove the bottleneck on the highway and provide 3 westbound travel lanes from Central Truckee to Norden.
Install environmental barriers along the backside of the Gateway and High Street neighborhoods to reduce traffic noise from the highway and help insulate the neighborhood.
Identify and develop any under-utilized commercial or open space near the highway to provide a rest area for trucks and vehicles to stage during highway closures, especially related to inclement weather. This would help keep trucks from staging in commercial parking lots, surface streets, or highway shoulders until the highway is accessible again.
Providing full-time residents with a “LOCAL” sticker that can be clearly affixed to the inside window of their vehicle and used to bypass traffic restrictions in town during road closures or peak travel restrictions. This idea is visited in more depth in the Sustainable Tourism section of this site.
PUBLIC TRANSIT
Public transit in Truckee has greatly increased since I moved here. On more than a couple occasions, I walked home from Truckee to Glenshire, along the dirt shoulder and often in inclement weather. As a young adult, I hitchhiked to and from work and regularly walked about 5 miles per day.
Truckee has significantly increased trails and made it so the town is far more accessible on foot, bicycle and public transportation that I have ever seen it. That being said, I’d like to see inclusion for all the neighborhoods to provide at least a basic bus service with designated stops in Tahoe Donner, Glenshire, Prosser Lakeview Estates and Sierra Meadows so residents can utilize this service. Currently, the fixed route transit is free. I’d like to see this continued as long as possible for those using public transit as an alternative to personal vehicles. I believe the Town Council should explore avenues to determine peak usage times, and service neighborhoods during those peak times to gain routine ridership.
I’d like to continue to see the increase of walkable and bikeable trails throughout town, finalize the connection of the Truckee Legacy Trail along South East River Street to culminate at SR 89 and finally make the bike trail a viable access point to bike from Tahoe City to Glenshire.
I love our rural town, but I really feel we should have sidewalks along our main roads in Truckee for pedestrians, especially West River Street, Brockway Road, and at least from the Donner Lake Interchange to the State Park.
I’d also like to see some sort of a parking improvement proposal for Donner Lake to ensure that vehicles parking along the North End of the lake to access the public piers can do so without impeding the bike lane. I don't believe that full parking restriction in that area is a reasonable solution for the issue.
PUBLIC SAFETY
Full disclosure, I have a conflict of interest with the Truckee Police Department. As a former Town of Truckee employee, I worked with Animal Services for 5 years and aligned under the Truckee PD. I worked for both Chief McGill and Chief Leftwich. I made some great friendships and working relationships with members of the PD. I spent one year performing ridealongs with our Community Service Officer to get field experience with their role in the community and determine if I was interested in applying for a position if and when it opened up, interviewed with the Volunteers in Police Services (VIPs), and ultimately, it was my interaction with the PD that helped kickstart my decision to get a degree in criminal justice.
In my experience, the Town of Truckee is best suited for lateral positions within the police department, meaning our officers transition from other departments, but don’t necessarily learn how to become peace officers with the Town of Truckee. I think that it helps attract officers with diverse backgrounds, who have various levels of experience in dealing with situational de-escalation, and crisis intervention. The Truckee PD also attracts a higher maturity level of the officers on our force – many of whom have served storied careers with other agencies and have come to Truckee to essentially raise their families or get into a department that does not offer the same level of risk as a municipal department or county sheriff office.
Regarding the recent departure of Chief Leftwich, the Town will be soliciting for a new police chief. There are some significant differences between municipal departments and county sheriffs, but the most important one is the leader of the department. The Sheriff is elected to serve their community by their constituents; police chiefs for municipal departments are chosen, usually by Mayors or Town Councils. The departure of Chief Leftwich means that Town Council will be interviewing for a new Chief of Police, who may or may not be from our department. I think the Town got fairly lucky upon the departure of Chief McGill, that we had then-Captain Leftwich who was both capable and qualified to take over the role of Truckee Police Chief. I suspect that whoever enters the Truckee PD to lead the department will have been fully vetted by the Town Council as both competent and qualified to watch over our town. Kind of like running for Town Council, I also never thought I’d work for the police department. It afforded me opportunities to meet people behind the badge and humanize them, which was both humbling and personally rewarding.
That said, I do like the current enforcement approach of acting-Chief Billingsly with regards to traffic enforcement. I’ve noticed an increased presence in Truckee and I’d like to see it continue to ensure public safety, especially in our neighborhoods which are more active with children, dogs, and pedestrians given the current climate surrounding COVID-19.
I think the Town Council should explore and re-evaluate the Dispatch Center that Chief McGill proposed before he left the department. In my personal experience with Nevada County Dispatch, I routinely felt that calls for service in Truckee were not prioritized; my calls for service were mostly animal related, but I often felt as if I was getting the brush-off, and as a citizen, that’s not what I expect from my public safety division. I think the Town Council should elicit the help of the Truckee Police Department to determine if they feel localized dispatch services would provide them better response to local issues. I also feel this would help reduce our dependence on county services and help Truckee be more self-sufficient in regards to public safety. The 20/21 budget shows that the Town has allocated $469,661 for police dispatch services. In 19/20, the Town allocated $357,000 and in 18/19 allocated $345,371. If my memory serves me, I believe the initial cost for the Town to build the dispatch center was $800,000 plus two staff members, with yearly wages averaging between $50,670 and $75,442. I think given the current cost of dispatch services from the county, this may become equitable within 3 years and potentially sooner given that most of the remodeling of the police department was already completed.
Also, I’d like to see the Town Council explore opportunities for our Police Department and other Town of Truckee employees who are seeking local residency to be afforded the opportunity to match with Landing Locals. Currently, the Town of Truckee is not aligned with the Tahoe Truckee Workforce Housing Agency, a coalition of 4 special districts which assist in covering fees for Landing Locals to help secure homes for essential employees in the school, hospital, public utilities and airport special districts.
DISASTER PREPARATION
Unfortunately, as far as disasters are concerned, I don’t have a very developed understanding of fire and forest ecology. I think given the fires we’ve seen this summer, and in recent memory, we should be exploring all avenues to determine how to best protect our neighborhoods and our towns from the threat of wildfire. This is already a challenging topic, especially given that homeowners are being dropped from their insurance policies and having to scramble to find new policies with limited timelines to complete them.
Living up here for so long, I’ve seen fire seasons stretch well into October. And given the recent influx of visitors in our area who are often negligent to the dangers of open flame, coupled with the extreme over-occupancy has many people on edge. I routinely think about how and where we can evacuate if needed and unfortunately, I’m often faced with the realization that I don’t necessarily have the means to evacuate when and how fast I’d want, because the routes I know about are likely known by many more people. Given a situation where there’s a mass evacuation in the basin, Truckee would not only be struggling to evacuate ourselves, but we may also be faced with an influx of traffic from North Lake Tahoe and West Shore.
Still, the Town of Truckee has instituted some ways to alert people of the need for evacuation, including Nixle and emergency broadcasts on 101.5 FM KTKE and Tahoe Truckee Media Group. I’d like to explore as many options as we deem necessary to determine the best ways for the Town to reduce excess fuel for wildfires as well as ways to evacuate at least the full population of the town in a safe manner that doesn’t result in gridlock on highways.
This is a complex issue that will likely best be addressed by as much public comment and staff review as possible, including looking toward other cities who were able to evacuate safely to get ideas on what works, and look toward those that were lost to get ideas on what could have been improved. Until we look at this topic from all possible angles, I don’t think Town Council will be able to provide a concise, focused approach to emergency evacuations in our area.
