The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) announced today six transportation projects and transit services recommended to receive more than $11.4 million in federal and state funding this year through the agency’s Regional Grant Program. The grant awards will improve safety and outdoor recreation access, and reduce vehicle miles traveled in the Tahoe Basin, according to TRPA.

Transportation improvement projects include:

• South Tahoe Greenway Trail – Upper Truckee River bridge at Johnson Meadow ($5,090,000)
• Nevada State Route 28 trail, transit, and safety improvements – Sand Harbor to Thunderbird Cove ($3,253,000)
• Tahoe City Complete Streets Improvements – Grove Street intersection pedestrian and bike safety, walkability, traffic circulation, and accessibility improvements ($1,400,000)

Transit service improvements include:

• South Shore free-to-the-user transit ($1,000,000)
• Emerald Bay summer transit and parking management project ($540,000)
• South Shore new evening transit service ($193,000)

In its dual role as Tahoe Metropolitan Planning Organization and Regional Transportation Planning Agency, TRPA allocates federal and state transportation funds every two years to priority projects listed in Connections 2050, the Regional Transportation Plan. Each project will advance regional goals for safer roads, cleaner air and water, and improved transit services to get people to work and popular recreation areas without a car.

The agency also released more than $340,000 in permit mitigation fees this year to local transportation and air quality improvement projects.

To learn more about the projects receiving the awards, visit trpa.gov/transportation/funding/regional-grant-program.

Originally published in the Tahoe Daily Tribune, 11/14/2025, Written by Katelyn Welsh

 Tahoe’s own Jim Morrison is the feature of an upcoming National Geographic documentary, capturing his Oct. 15 accomplishment on Mount Everest’s (29,032 ft.) North Face. The date marks the day he carved his name in history as the first to ski what has been considered the mountain’s most daunting line, the Hornbein Couloir.

“For two years everyone looked at the face and was like, are you crazy?” Morrison told National Geographic.

Incredibly steep, with sections between 45 and 60 degrees, and essentially running vertically down, the Hornbein Couloir is an extreme risk for falls and avalanches.

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Photo: Tahoe Daily Tribune

When I was a seventh grader, I was sure about one thing, that in college I would be quarterbacking UCLA. As it happened, I would be diving at Oregon, but that seventh grader had the conference right. So what can an aspiring seventh grader be certain about today? Could it be what Mark Twain alluded to? “Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.”

Had you told me when I was in seventh grade, that I would become a performance artist, portraying Mark Twain for a living, I would have asked, “What’s a performance artist?”

I suppose the first indication I had that art could change people’s lives for the better came on the Island of Maui, where I had taken a position as morning announcer at KTOH radio. (K for west of the Mississippi, TOH for Territory of Hawaii.) Along with playing music and interviewing guests, I delivered a five-minute newscast at the top of the hour from 6-10am. It was a dream job come true.

One beautiful Maui morning, something was pressing at home, and I had to leave the station early, so I recorded my ten o’clock newscast and stuck my thumb out for Spreckelsville, as my motorcycle was in the shop. 

A young surfer picked me up, and I had to smile at the fact that he was smoking a big fat Waikapu Whacko, and listening to KTOH on his Jeep radio. We shared some small talk, and then my prerecorded newscast started playing on his radio. I noticed that my young surfer friend was looking at his doobie, and maybe wondering if he might have purchased a bad batch, as my voice was coming at him from two different directions.

Somewhat amused at what I could see was happening, I thought I’d have some fun, and double down on this abnormality. I knew the last line of my newscast would be, “And the score of last night’s football game was Baldwin 21, Maui High 17.” So I started talking to my now attentive friend about last night’s football game, then chimed in with the same words on the radio, “And the score of last night’s football game was Baldwin 21, Maui High 17.”

My surfer friend took a long last look at his Waikapu Whacko, tucked it between his thumb and forefinger, and flicked it unceremoniously onto the road. I doubt that he ever smoked again, so I like to take credit for reforming a young Maui surfer in my first act as a performance artist. I wonder sometimes what that young surfer might be doing today.

I was afforded fifteen enjoyable years of radio before getting a tap on the shoulder from Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who gifted me a 37-year career as an impressionist of Mark Twain. What luck, and what a blessing. That seventh grader is smiling…

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

Originally Published in the Tahoe Daily Tribune, 11/15/2025, Staff Report

 Started by a small group of women who belonged to St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church and enjoyed knitting and crocheting, the Knitters Guild of Incline Village, gathered together to support the Winter Warmth &Wellness campaign on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe.

Members of the Knitters Guild have been creating and donating items for many, many years. This year, Knitters Guild donated more than 150 knitted and crocheted articles, which included hats, scarves, blankets, cowls, shawls, among other items.

More than 25 years ago, Winter Warmth & Wellness (as it’s known today and for the past 10 years), was part of a clothing distribution during a Thanksgiving food sharing program to needy families in the North Lake Tahoe community. Items such as gently used winter wear, household necessities, personal care items, hand-made hats, gloves, scarves, blankets and more are collected at locations throughout the north shore of Lake Tahoe, with drop off points at a variety of locations, including Village Church, St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, Cornerstone Community Church, St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church, and North Tahoe Event Center.

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