All transportation is subsidized

Two transportation-related debates are rising to the fore as Douglas County prepares to find new management for Minden-Tahoe Airport and debates funding microtransit at Stateline.

Last week, The Record-Courier broke the story that ABS, the contractor currently running the airport, had given its 90-day notice.

The company said it was aware the county planned on issuing a public request for proposals and that rather than muddle through the rest of the year as staff members looked for work, they felt the proper thing was to give notice.

With a few exceptions for the military demonstration shows and two visits by President Trump, there aren’t all that many residents who regularly visit the airport, where a key draw is the Taildragger Restaurant.

Its key source of funding now are grants from the Federal Aviation Administration raised from fees on commercial airline tickets, with exactly none of that money raised at Minden-Tahoe.

Keeping competent airport management is critical for those dollars to keep flowing and preventing the airport from being a burden on county taxpayers.

Last week Douglas County approved spending the pledged $520,000 raised mostly at the Stateline resorts through room taxes.

We suspect that the messaging on that thing at some point went from just a means to reduce traffic through Stateline as a result of big shows to providing public transportation to Douglas County’s Lake Tahoe residents.

It seems the opposition to contributing to the microtransit has more to do with the events center. Whether that is an accurate interpretation or not, betting the events center won’t open because Douglas didn’t fund the microtransit seems like a long shot. The center is very nearly done, and the memory of the big hole right across the state line from the casino corridor is still a fairly fresh reminder of previous efforts.

With the exception of feet, horse or bicycle, pretty much every form of transportation is subsidized by the government in some way. Even individual vehicles require roads that are maintained with public money raised through some tax or other, something we’ve been reminded of repeatedly over the past 10 weeks of snowy weather.