69, DUDE!
Caltrans Senior Construction Engineer Damon Cherenzia outlined a trio of highway projects coming forward in the next year at a press briefing on Wednesday at the local office on South Main in Bishop.
These projects promise to bring necessary long-term improvements, but may also bring some short-term inconvenience.
The $24.5 million Bishop Pavement Project is expected to commence on April 28, 2025 and take 14 months to complete.
The project scope takes place along U.S. 395 (from south of J Street to Barlow) and along Line Street (to the hospital).
It will be broken up into ten segments. According to the terms of the contract, Papich Construction, which is performing the work, cannot move onto a next segment until the current segment it’s working on is complete.
The idea being to compartmentalize the chaos, generally to two or three block stretches.
For example, segment one is along U.S. 395 from Mandich to South Streets. Segment two is Lagoon to Line. And those segments stretch to See Vee Lane where the Meadow Farms project (another Papich job) begins.
From See Vee to Barlow, the Bishop Pavement project handles the highway portion while the $13 million Meadow Farms project (scheduled to begin June 2 and last for approx. one year) focuses on curb, gutter, sidewalk.
At the north end of town, as part of the work, the multi-use path will be extended along the south side of the highway all the way to Barlow. Caltrans Public Information Officer Christopher Andriessen says this extension has been “the most requested improvement since I’ve been here.”
The job will potentially continue on a 24/7 basis, though there are certain noise thresholds which the contractor cannot exceed from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Paving will be done nights only.
Pedestrian and driveway access to affected businesses must be maintained during construction.
Work will be recessed for the upcoming Mule Days event from May 19-30.
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The other $31.5 million (24.5 + 13 + 31.5 = 69. I wasn’t kidding) project in the area is called the Fish Springs Pavement project. It covers Bishop proper and extends south down to Tinnemaha Reservoir – a total span of about ten miles.
This one would also start in June. And has an expected 10-month timeline.
The contractor is Road and Highway Builder out of Sparks.
This one will be a little tricky because Big Pine doesn’t have the redundancy of the Bishop grid – so there be some access issues for Main Street businesses, though Cherenzia said he is sensitive to business and downtown disruption.
On the southern section, they’ll work on one side of the highway while traffic is two-laned on the other, so it shouldn’t pose great delays.
