KINGS BEACH
, CALIF.
-- A vocal and involved audience of 250 interested residents attended the fifth and final community meeting on the Kings Beach Commercial Core Improvement Project on May 29, 2007.
The project is proposing four different alternatives for the 1.1-mile section of Highway 28 that runs through the center of the Lake Tahoecommunity. One alternative would leave the highway as it is. The three build alternatives, all of which would include bicycle lanes and water quality improvements are:
- Alternative 2: SR 28 will become three lanes with roundabouts at Bear and Coon streets. Sidewalks would be about nine feet in width with seasonal on-street parking.
- Alternative 3: SR 28 will become a four-lane version roadway with stop lights at Bear and Coon streets. Sidewalks would be about five feet in width.
- Alternative 4: SR 28 would also be a three-lane highway with roundabouts at Bear and Coon streets. However, sidewalks would be about 17 feet in width with no on-highway parking.
At the previous community meeting, attendees put their backing behind the two designs that utilize roundabouts by about a 3 to 1 margin based on a project investment exercise. Many attendees at this last meeting voiced a preference for the four-lane design and were reminded that all four alternatives will move forward and be considered by the county, TRPA and the California Department of Transportation. After a questions and answer session, attendees broke out into smaller work groups to address design aspects of what had been the overwhelmingly favored three-lane design. What surfaced from that exercise was a melding of features from the two three-lane alternative designs. Some of these elements included a three-lane design with roundabouts at Bear and Coon streets, wide sidewalks between Bear and Coon streets near the center of the project and on-street parking on Highway 28 closer to the edges of the project.
The Project will now move before the Placer County Planning Commission, which will have to approve a community plan amendment to allow the three-lane design if one of the three-lane alternatives is chosen. After Planning Commission approval, the project will also go before the Board of Supervisors later this year.