Lake Tahoe has re-introduced its public transportation service that will pick riders up and drop them off curbside wherever they want - and the best part is, it's completely free.
The service is called TART Connect (Tahoe Truckee Area Regional Transportation) and it operates similarly to Uber and Lyft, except it’s a public transit shuttle service - otherwise known as a microtransit. This relatively-new type of transportation is defined by the American Association of Public Transportation as "small-scale, on-demand public transit services that can offer fixed routes and schedules, as well as flexible routes and on-demand scheduling."
People in the Tahoe area can either order a ride through the TART Connect App or call the service, and a shuttle will arrive to them within 20 minutes and take them to their destination, as long as it's inside their location's zone.
The service will operate within the three lakeside zones between 8 a.m. and 12 a.m. while it will be available in the Olympic Valley/Tahoe City and Northstar/Kings Beach zone every Friday and Saturday between 5:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.
Passengers traveling from one zone to another are able to receive rides to where they can make a connection to the zone they’re traveling to.
The service, which started last June and operated through the fall, returned on Friday and runs until April 10. It’s funded by Placer County and a "variety of partners and other government agencies," in an effort to reduce greenhouse gases and limit traffic in Tahoe’s two-lane highways, which can be especially congested during peak tourist season, according to SFGate.
"It takes the best of all worlds," Jesse Patterson told the outlet, chief strategy officer of the League to Save Lake Tahoe, which helped fund the pilot program.
"It’s not the silver bullet," he added. "But it’s a really integral part of getting people around without their car, which is the end goal."
