By Tim Hauserman

Last summer, at my house on West Lake Blvd. in Tahoe Park, my evenings were punctuated with the delightful sounds of banging, screeching and a host of other bizarre noises which come with a major road construction project in front of your house. This summer for the most part has been quieter. Just the beep, beep, beep of the backing pilot car leading the one lane at a time traffic through the construction zone. But it’s all coming to an end. The work on the section of road from Tahoe Park past Sunnyside to Timberland is just about done. Hallelujah! Yippee!

The newly refurbished Highway 89 has concrete curbs and gutters, a wider and smoother road surface, and a complicated system of new drainage improvements including the gutters, vaults and catch basins designed to capture the rapid run off of summer thunderstorms as well as the steady rain and snowmelt during the winter time. It’s also designed to reduce erosion and thus protect our precious Lake Tahoe. The parts of the system that were completed last year seem to have passed the test, which was quite the test given the mega winter of snow and rain.

I tried out the new road surface today on my road bike and it was smooth as silk. It’s going to be pretty awesome for locals, visitors and businesses alike as one lane traffic delays comes to an end and we get this nice new road and drainage improvements in it’s place. Of course we all know that road construction at Lake Tahoe is like death and taxes, it will be back. Given the copious quantities of moisture we receive in the winter, and the amount of traffic year round, it is a given.