This California party river’s new shuttle could save you from a $162 mistake

After a day swimming in the magical emerald pools at the South Yuba River, the same dread always sets in on the hike back to your car.

At first, you just see one: a yellow parking ticket tucked under a windshield wiper. Then they are on every car – and, you realize, as you get closer, that a $162 ticket for improperly parking is probably on your car, too.

But no longer must a trip to the Yuba end this way.

This summer, in an attempt to break up the traffic clots around the river and drivers from blocking emergency access roads with their cars, Nevada County began offering a $2 shuttle from Nevada City to Hoyt’s Crossing, one of the most popular access points on the South Yuba. 

I was excited to try it out. Since I visited the Yuba for the first time last year, I’d already returned to the river three times. A few minutes of waiting for a shuttle seemed well worth sparing myself the headache of parking. 

By the time I’d started visiting the Yuba, its blue-green swimming holes and sparkling granite boulders had gone from a word-of-mouth secret to regularly appearing on Instagram and TikTok feeds. The South Yuba River Citizens League estimates that 800,000 people visit the region each year.

I’ve only ever been lucky enough to find legal parking when I’ve arrived before 10 a.m. As the day goes on, drivers start to ignore the signs posted around them, blocking fire roads and parking on bridges – both illegal. 

Even if you do find a spot, you’ll still have to walk down to the river along the shoulder of the road, with cars whizzing by at 50 miles per hour.

California Highway Patrol has made efforts to tame the parking chaos, ramping up enforcement and stationing officers near the most popular swimming areas. 

But the shuttle system is an effort to avoid problems before they start.

The shuttle leaves every 30 minutes from a Nevada County government building at 950 Maidu Ave., a 15-minute walk from the center of Nevada City.

I timed my arrival at 12:25, five minutes ahead of when the 12:30 p.m. shuttle was set to arrive. I was unlucky – the shuttle had departed a few minutes early, and the next one wouldn’t come until 1 p.m.

Still, there was a solidarity among us shuttle-riding Yuba-ers that one does not find among drivers, who are considered only as competitors over a scarce resource.  But as I sat on the curb waiting for the shuttle, two young women who had pulled up in a red Mazda sedan rolled down their window. 

“Want a White Claw?” they offered. Needless to say, I’ve never been offered a drink by the driver of the car I’m boxing in on the shoulder of Highway 49.

The shuttle pulled up a few minutes later, welcoming 12 of us total on board. Unlike the other shuttle that Bay Area river rats may be familiar with at the Russian River, no cash is required –  each shuttle has a Tap-to-Pay reader.

Many of the riders I spoke with had also opted for the shuttle to avoid the parking nightmare.

Chris Paul, a 47-year-old San Franciscan, was taking it for the second week in the row. Last week, he’d squeezed onto the shuttle with an entire bachelorette party. By comparison, we were a much quieter bunch.

“This is one of my favorite places in California,” Paul said. “But parking is such a pain, and this was really convenient.”

The girls sharing White Claws came from Grass Valley, and opted for the shuttle because they wanted to drink on the river. (This is where the Nevada County Public Information Officer Taylor Wolfe would like me to inform you that alcohol is not allowed on the Yuba River. To be clear, I only witnessed consumption in the parking lot, where no such ban is in place.)

Kyle Grochmal, 38, and Tiffany Loh, 35, also from San Francisco, had chosen the shuttle for the same reason as me – fear of parking tickets. After they’d gotten one last year, they decided taking the shuttle was the safer bet. Their only complaint was that the shuttle didn’t stop in the center of Nevada City so they could have avoided driving at all. 

“You really need a car up here,” Grochmal said. 

In its pilot year, ridership has been low. Since service began July 3, the county has recorded 1,269 passenger boardings. The shuttle’s busiest weekend was July 31 through Aug. 2, when 292 people climbed aboard.

So far, it doesn’t appear that the shuttle is bringing new riders out to the Yuba who wouldn’t otherwise come – in a poll of 76 shuttle riders conducted by Nevada County, 80% of riders said they would have just driven anyways. But increasing tourism to the Yuba was never really the goal, Wolfe said – it was about shifting some trips away from driving and to the shuttle.

Getting from the government center to Highway 49 is meant to take 26 minutes, per the shuttle schedule. But we made it down in a quick 15. We might have even gotten there faster, but our driver, Collin Smith, slowed down to avoid cars whose wheels crossed over the white fog line into the roadway.

“The shuttle,” Smith said, “is meant to prevent situations like this.”

Smith dropped us off at the small parking lot at Hoyt’s Crossing, where three California State Park rangers stood with thumbs hooked in their vests. One pointed to a white Camry that had double parked behind a sedan, which had left only a small opening for our shuttle to get through.

“Oh yeah, they’re getting towed for sure,” the park ranger said.

The rest of my Yuba adventure was marvelous. Unlike the shuttle, the Yuba itself needs no hyping up. The water was cold, the rocks were warm, and the watermelon I’d brought stayed crisp. After four hours of swimming and sunbathing, it was time to head back.

I made it to the parking lot at 5 p.m., hoping to catch the shuttle. But my public transit karma was still running low, because again I found myself waiting.

The driver apologized when he pulled up at 5:40 p.m. The only other shuttle in the rotation had malfunctioned, and they were down to just one. None of the seven people who boarded seemed particularly upset. We were at peace, our minds liberated from parking anxieties. We got back to our cars without incident.

For now, the shuttle is not exactly a revolution. Those traveling from the Bay still need a car to reach the Yuba – and if you’ve already driven three hours to Nevada City, I can understand why you’d feel like just driving the additional 10 minutes to the river, crossing your fingers in hope that someone will be pulling out of a spot just as you arrive.

But the shuttle, to me, was effective. It removes one small misery from a day that is otherwise almost entirely perfect. It lets you float, swim, sun yourself on a rock and get back to Nevada City with minimal increases in blood pressure – at least until you hit traffic on I-80.

At the end of my trip, I crossed the parking lot back to my car with wet hair, my Chacos covered in dust. My dashboard was blissfully free of parking tickets.

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This article originally published at This California party river’s new shuttle could save you from a $162 mistake.