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Town of Truckee looking to relocate downtown transit center

Hannah Jones
hjones@sierrasun.com

Plans for relocating Truckee’s downtown transit center are underway with the town organizing a committee to determine the new location and details of the project.

According to Kelly Beede, administrative analyst for the Town of Truckee, the transit center operating out of the train depot is often operating beyond its capacity.

“We have a pretty robust transit hub in historic, downtown Truckee at the train depot,” said Beede noting that the building hosts Tahoe Truckee Area Regional Transit buses as well as Greyhound buses and airport shuttles. With plans to possibly add a night bus service in Truckee if funding becomes available, the current transit center could easily be overwhelmed.



“At some point as we expand our transit operations we’ll have many more buses coming into the area and needing a transit hub that can accommodate them,” said Beede.

“At some point as we expand our transit operations we’ll have many more buses coming into the area and needing a transit hub that can accommodate them.”— Kelly Beede, Town of Truckee administrative analyst

In November the town hired Green Dot Transportation Solutions to conduct a feasibility study for the project after receiving a grant from Caltrans to cover $88,000 of the study. After holding a kickoff meeting in December with Green Dot and Caltrans the town determined five potential sites for a new transit center. These included the old California highway Patrol facility at 10077 State Route 89, on West River Street next to the railroad, the Truckee Railyard, at Town Hall or expanding the existing transit center.



According to staff, the final report will include a preferred site, conceptual layout, facility amenities, project phasing and property and construction cost.

If the transit center were to be moved, Beede said that the train depot would likely still remain a bus stop for TART services.

“Greyhound and Amtrak would continue using the train depot in some fashion but all of those details would be flushed out through this process,” said Beede. “We aren’t completely pulling the transit center out of downtown.”

Currently the town is looking to establish a committee with community members and local committees that will be affected by the change such as the Truckee Tahoe Airport District and the Truckee Donner Chamber of Commerce. The group would have up to six committee meetings with the first meeting planned for sometime in February.

According to Beede the grant money for the study has to be used before June of 2021.

“Our desire is to complete the project much sooner than that,” said Beede. “But we have that time if we need it.”

Hannah Jones is a reporter for the Sierra Sun. She can be reached at 530-550-2652 or hjones@sierrasun.com.


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