Strategic Plan

An alpine ecosystem as fragile as Tahoe’s can suffer even from small changes. The impacts of warming air and water temperatures could be devastating: More severe droughts and storms. Changing weather with more rain and less snowfall. Tree mortality, longer wildfire seasons, and more intense fires. Warm­ing lake waters increasingly susceptible to algae growth, invasive species, and reduced water clarity.

Every TRPA initiative includes strategies to strengthen the resilience of Tahoe’s environment, communities, and economy to the emerging stresses of climate change and to improve the region’s sustainability. California and Nevada have aggressive targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and TRPA and the region’s partners must work to help meet those targets. Working together to implement the national award-winning 2014 Lake Tahoe Sustainability Plan will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen the region’s communities and economy. As a major drive-up destination for millions of Northern California and Northern Nevada residents, TRPA and dozens of partners, including inter-regional partners in neighboring metropolitan areas, must implement major improvements for the transportation system, which is the largest contributor of greenhouse gases in both states. TRPA’s Climate Initiative is harmonizing the goals of both states and local governments in the Tahoe Basin while maintaining the Region’s reputation as a global leader in sustainability.

Click here to learn more about the Climate Resiliency Program.

Tahoe’s transportation system needs transformative changes. Reliable, frequent, and free transit with expanded routes, miles of new paths and trails, complete streets, convenient mobility hubs, real-time travel and parking information, electric-vehicle charging, adap­tive roadway management, and travel demand strategies can all help Tahoe achieve broadly-shared goals. These include a healthy, world-class environment, reduced traf­fic and greenhouse gas emissions, revitalized and pedes­trian-friendly town centers, and improved safety. These changes will provide more sustainable travel options for residents and millions of yearly visitors. TRPA’s 2020 Regional Transportation Plan and the 10-year Action Plan created by the Bi-State Consultation on Transportation lay out this vision and strategies for TRPA and partners in and out of the basin to achieve comprehensive, long-overdue improvements that trans­form how people travel around, to, and from Lake Tahoe.

Click here to learn more about the transportation program.

Tahoe faces a housing crisis. TRPA and partners must find ways to create more achievable workforce housing. To meet many community and environmental goals, Tahoe employees must be able to find and afford hous­ing close to transit and trails that provide connections to work, school, stores, and recreation areas.

Click here to learn more about the housing program.

The Environmental Improvement Program has guided Tahoe’s restoration for almost 25 years. TRPA and 80-plus EIP partners must find new funding sources to accelerate progress toward a healthy, sustainable, and resilient region. Top priorities include major transporta­tion and community revitalization projects, reducing wildfire risk and improving forest health at a faster pace on a landscape scale, implementing plans to control or eradicate aquatic invasive species, and working with partners to reduce stormwater pollution through area­wide management projects and watershed restoration projects that provide multiple benefits for communities, the environment, and Tahoe’s clarity.

Click here to learn more about the Environmental Improvement Program.

Conserving and restoring a 500-square-mile watershed’s environmental health requires good data, achievable goals, and monitoring programs that provide needed informa­tion to measure progress and adaptively manage for better results. TRPA and science partners continue to update monitoring programs and the threshold standards that set environmental goals for the region. The Tahoe Science Advisory Council continues to be an invaluable partner in guiding this work. Updates must ensure programs are effectively tracking important changes to Tahoe’s environment and providing TRPA and the region’s land managers with the best possible information to identify challenges and measure progress. Near-term updates will focus on measures for water quality, transportation, recreation, and stream environment zones.

Click here to learn more about TRPA’s monitoring programs.

TRPA will continue its transition to digital technologies for information storage, access, and sharing, permit ap­plications, and customer transactions. This shift will help TRPA store and more easily share valuable data with many partners, improve transparency and public access to information, and provide greater ease and convenience for property owners and businesses and their information and permitting needs.