Local officials are waving the white flag and we get it. The Truckee-North Tahoe region has been more crowded than ever this summer. Blame urban flight, pandemic boredom, a lack of international and interstate travel – it all adds up to more people in the Tahoe area.
The morning view of the Nevada County COVID scoreboard spells out the problem. While the numbers overall in Nevada County don’t appear problematic, finding that a huge percentage of those cases are in the Truckee zip code is an eye-opener. We’re definitely in a red zone. If you check out Placer County numbers, Kings Beach and Tahoe City are also similar hot spots.
That’s why the Town of Truckee and Placer County joined forces this week to ask the people stop visiting, at least on weekends, until at least August 17th.
(North Lake Tahoe-Truckee, Calif.) — As leaders and decision makers in the Truckee-Tahoe region, we are constantly looking at health risk in our community and balancing that with its economic vitality. It has become clear to us that our desirable location is experiencing an exceptionally busy influx of weekend visitors that creates an inability to practice safe physical distancing in the most popular areas in our region.
We have serious concerns about crowds and how dense weekend populations impact our COVID-19 containment, our hospital capacity, and our ability to maintain the key recommendation from the California Department of Public Health of maintaining physical separation of at least 6 feet from other people.
Furthermore, Truckee Mayor David Polivy points out that, “We have seen substantial issues with parking, camping, calls for service, complaints about trash, large groups not distancing, and overcrowding in public areas and trails. These issues are all important in preserving our region, and keeping our residents and visitors safe and healthy while also keeping our business community viable.”
This is historically a busy time in our region that has been even further compounded by larger numbers of day visitors than we have seen in previous years. The ability to physically distance in this pandemic is paramount. “With our current environment of uncertainty, and many of our businesses already having to take measures to reduce or close their operations due to an increase in COVID-19 cases, safety must be our top priority,” states Placer County District 5 Supervisor Cindy Gustafson. “We cannot risk a further surge in COVID-19 cases and want to discourage visitation on weekends during what has historically been our peak summer visitation period, and instead see that visitation occur in what are historically less busy time periods in the late summer and fall.”
The North Lake Tahoe and Truckee officials are strongly discouraging visitors from coming to the region on weekends through at least August 17, 2020, after which time they believe that visitation levels will subside to more manageable levels and better allow physical distancing of 6 feet between people to occur. We will continue to monitor our population influx, and will update any recommendations about visitation as needed.
The thing is, we’re not just seeing an influx of short term visitors. Many are making plans to make Truckee or Lake Tahoe their permanent homes. Real estate sales are still hotter than hot. Desirable homes are on the market for only a day or two before someone scoops them up. We’ve also seen reports than short term rentals, like VRBO and AirBnB’s, are becoming more difficult to find as owners have chosen to change their second home into their permanent home.
Our infrastructure can’t always handle that extra crush. There’s the obvious bottlenecks, like Highway 89 and 267, Tahoe beaches and the Truckee River booze cruise. But this summer we’re seeing more unexpected impacts:
- Popular trails like the Legacy Trail, Truckee River Trail, the Five Lakes trail and Shirley Canyon trail have just been slammed. You might have more success with social distancing at Pier 39 or Disney World.
- Campsites at just about every open campground in the area have been fully booked since things opened up on Memorial Day Weekend. Many are fully booked until they close again in the fall. This has pushed more people into dispersed camping areas that used to be much more dispersed. It also means you see a lot of illegal camping around the area.
- Internet providers are having difficulty keeping up with the demand for bandwidth. In my neighborhood, Suddenlink used to slow down only on peak holidays, but now it happens just about every weekend. Verizon Wireless also seems like they can’t keep up. More and more, I’ve got all sorts of bars, but no data is moving.
- Dining establishments that are open can’t keep up with the demand. Everywhere you go, you see long lines of people waiting for an available outdoor table, or for that to go order they placed hours ago.
Fortunately, two new grocery stores opened in Truckee this summer, giving all of us more options. There’s no winning in a discussion about which of the new stores, or old stores, are the best. For my needs, just having groceries on the eastern side of town simplifies life in so many ways.
One question that many people have been discussing is when or if things will slow down. With most of California opting to start the school year in the distance learning model and many adults now working remotely, I am guessing that August and September will remain much busier than “normal”…except that nobody knows what is normal any more.
What does this mean for the 2020-2021 ski season? That is an excellent question…we’re going to have to wait a bit longer for answers.
It hurts tons but I’m doing my part and staying in my local area until things change, if more would do the same we might get to some semblance of new normal by the winter, unfortunately we live in the United States of Stupidity and Selfishness so I’m resigned to nothing changing anytime soon. Put on a mask, eat at home and stay in your home area. Don’t be a Bolsonaro or a ………
Too little Way to late. Good luck having anybody read/care about that.
I forgot, its cool to come up mid week cause Covid only works weekends…
Spot on…because every weekday looks like a weekend.
I’m guessing that the bulk of the short term visitors are in short term rentals. Why isn’t that shut down again. I know it will hurt the businesses but you can’t have it both ways. I don’t think you can legally shut down second home owners using their property. Shutting down short term rentals and the campgrounds would certainly calm down the level of usage.
The region has gotten away with taking the second home owner’s property taxes but not investing in infrastructure to match the housing investment. At least in terms of hospitals, schools.
STR’s are mostly owned by non locals. They are slammed and making money. Meanwhile locally owned businesses are shut down. So, how is it fair that mini hotel owners can stay “open” and local businesses are stuck? These STR’s are often rented to mitigate the costs of a vacation home (non essential residence). I would guess for many it’s not their primary income .
Finally they’re discouraging visitors but how will it reach those that come here? News channels, papers? It is so out of control in our quiet west shore community that as locals we can’t go to the beaches or on bike trails any longer. It’s been all about the money from visitors not giving support to our local businesses(hairdressers, restaurants, nail salons). How long must they close so visitors can come and expose us. The supervisors can recommend all they want but they need to step it up and enforce it. This is a pandemic after all. Times call for extreme measures!
One point rated above in the comments is “Finally they’re discouraging visitors but how will it reach those that come here?”, and I’ll say that from my perspective here in Antioch CA (Greater San Francisco Bay Area, and Sacramento River Delta) that there has been *no* local online mention of the need to reduce visitors in Tahoe. I can’t comment at all on whether the information might have been disseminated via TeeVee, or Radio, or Print Media (because I do. not regularly peruse any of that) but it has not shown up on the major online news channels at all…