BYPASS BISHOP?
When it comes to figuring out how to divert semi-truck traffic around Bishop, Mayor Stephen Muchovej is like a dog with a bone; he just won’t drop it.
After years of failed concepts and numerous plans, Muchovej and the Bishop City Council are taking another stab at getting Caltrans to build a “designated truck route” that would divert semi-trucks east of Bishop. As Muchovej explained at the May 11 council meeting, the suggested route would intersect with U.S. 395 somewhere between five and seven miles south of Bishop and loop around the town past the Bishop Airport and then link into U.S. Hwy. 6 north of Bishop somewhere in the vicinity of Laws.
The new road would not be a bypass of U.S. 395, he noted. Instead, he said it should be considered an extension of U.S. 6, which currently ends at U.S. 395 at the Tri-County Fairgrounds. Linking to Hwy. 6 is critical since traffic counts from Caltrans confirm that “a vast majority” of the semis rolling through Bishop turn onto Hwy. 6, Muchovej said.
The new road would be a mandatory alternative truck route, Muchovej said, that would direct semis around town while allowing passenger vehicles to continue through Bishop on 395 as they head north to Mammoth Lakes, for example.
Muchovej is the latest in a long line of Bishop leaders and downtown promoters who have been vexed by the challenges of getting semi-trucks to go around Bishop while maintaining a steady flow of visitor and tourist traffic though town and into local small businesses.
For years, ever since being elected to the city council, he and like-minded downtown enthusiasts have been batting around ideas for a truck route.
This time, however, the city council is taking the initiative. It approved a formal request to Caltrans District 9 to “initiate a Project Initiation Document (PID) to evaluate potential alternatives for rerouting heavy truck traffic around the City’s downtown corridor.”
That letter to Caltrans would be the first step on a very long road. Muchovej said the initial PID study could take two to three years. Since Inyo County has fewer than 40,000 residents, Muchovej said Caltrans would pay for the PID. If the PID determines the truck route is worth building, the new road would probably take another 30-40 years to actually build, he said. Completing environmental studies, obtaining the right-of-way, design and engineering, then bidding and construction are the big steps, he noted.
Muchovej had plenty of numbers to back the push to get started on the alternative route. The surge in truck traffic is confirmed by Caltrans traffic counts. In 2024, there were 867 semis going through Bishop, with 521 then turning onto Hwy. 6 and 346 going north on U.S. 395. In 2017, about 673 trucks went through Bishop, with nearly an even split between Hwy. 6 and North 395.
That means truck traffic has increased by 40% from 2017 to 2024, Muchovej said. “And it’s getting worse.”
In 2019, Caltrans projected the number of big rigs on U.S.395 driving through Bishop in 2040. That number that was exceeded in 2023, he said. The letter states that, “Caltrans forecasts continued growth in regional freight traffic over the coming decade,” and urges the agency to “proactively plan for these changes.”
Besides the numbers, public comment on the Bishop Downtown Plan and literally every other planning document puts reducing truck traffic on Main Street as a top concern, he added. (Aside: The letter the city sent to Caltrans overflows with the appropriate planning and transportation jargon stressing safety, a commitment to moving traffic efficiently, and on and on.)
Without a full-service truck stop, truck drivers don’t generate significant business in town. The looming completion of a large truck stop at the Fort Independence Paiute reservation would quickly become the preferred stop for truckers, he noted.
The first of three previous bypass routes proposed by Caltrans was in the 1970s. Several of those imagined routes went close to residential areas and were designed to take all traffic, passenger vehicles and semis, around Bishop. Local businesses said moving through-traffic off Main Street would have serious, negative economic impacts.
“A PID would provide the appropriate framework to objectively analyze these and other considerations, including environmental constraints, engineering feasibility, cost, and community impacts,” the letter states.
