You choose: Stay in South Lake Tahoe longer, or sit in traffic

Three new message signs were unveiled in South Lake Tahoe this week, just in time for the holiday weekend. Since the fourth of July is a big tourist draw, it is the perfect time to test out all the message signs can provide to those on the road.

Who wouldn't want to enjoy the lake a little bit longer, hike or bike a little bit longer, or linger over a big meal instead of sitting in traffic over Echo Summit on Highway 50?

Nancy Kerry, City Manager of South Lake Tahoe and Jim Marino, the City's Assistant Public Works Director, approached Caltrans years ago, asking if they could help alert travelers about the time it takes to get over the mountain towards Placerville.

"At the City we have long been concerned about the traffic and very long lines of cars sitting in slow moving (or not moving) traffic often beginning as far back Tahoe Keys or further," said Kerry. "We have all seen the vacationers leaving after Sunday check out at 11 a.m. only to find themselves in traffic that takes as long as 4 hours to Sacramento, we’ve even heard times longer than that."

The City launched the "Stay and Play Another Day" campaign a couple of years ago to show guests how much more of the area they could enjoy by not jumping onto Highway 50 in standstill traffic.

Kerry hopes once people see “180 minutes” or “240 minutes," etc., that they might consider staying in South Lake Tahoe Tahoe a little longer.

The Caltrans engineers responsible for the project were in South Lake Tahoe on Thursday to see the system working.

Andrew Brandt, Deputy Director of Maintenance and Traffic Operations for Caltrans explained how the signs can accurately show the time a car will take to travel from the sign to Echo Summit, Strawberry, Kyburz, Sly Park and Placerville. It uses the same technology as Disneyland when determining the line time on attractions.

Brandt said they couldn't use the same methods as in metropolitan areas where they use loops in the road to measure travel time. In South Lake Tahoe they developed software that uses Bluetooth signals from cars passing by their equipment.

As they were testing the electronic boards on Thursday, the time to Strawberry fell off the message. Brandt explained that this is because there were too few data points to read, ie: not enough cars with Bluetooth phones on board were traveling to Strawberry.

That will be a different case this weekend.

The three signs are located near Tahoe Meadows (where Pioneer Trail and Highway 50 meet near Stateline), by Staples at the "Y" and in Meyers before heading up Echo Summit. They all use the same data as does their website.

What makes this system even more helpful to the visitor who is trying to decide whether to stay or get on the road is the Caltrans website. The message board can be read there. Hotels, restaurants, casinos and other tourist based locations can use this information to their advantage. Log on and communicate the times to guests. They just might stay and enjoy a bit longer.

If one isn't near one of the three signs in town they can log onto either tahoeroads.com and click on "Click here for Caltrans QuickMap" or via the main Caltrans website, www.dot.ca.gov and click on "Click here for Caltrans QuickMap." Use the "Quick Map" icon, then select "Message Signs" from the left side bar.

Pictured here from Caltrans are, left to right, Tom Hallenbeck, Alan Benson, Dean Campbell, Kris Kuhl, Andrew Brandt, John Slonaker, Bill Farnbach and Stan Slavin.