MAMMOTH LAKES NEW AIRPORTER SERVICE
Published in the July 11, 2026 edition.
The Town of Mammoth Lakes is partnering with Eastern Sierra Transit Authority (ESTA) to solve its airport transportation issues.
The Town has decided to lay out approximately $180,000 over the next fiscal year to guarantee airport-to-town transportation service from Bishop and Mammoth Airports to a few locations in town.
The $180,000 includes $72,000 to lease four buses which have the capacity to handle entire plane-loads of passengers.
The bus leases are for two years, so the Town is allowing for some runway (har har) for the pilot (har har redux) program to catch on.
And factors in $130/hour to operate the routes.
The service debuted on June 25.
The Bishop bus is daily but is not direct. It is enveloped into a Bishop-Mammoth route with stops at the Bishop Vons and Crowley Community Center before reaching Mammoth.
It then stops at the Park-and-Ride at Tavern Road and the Village at Mammoth.
Cost is $10. Revenue collected will be recycled into the program.
The Mammoth Airport service is also $10 and has just two stops. At Tavern Road and the Village at Mammoth. The bus schedule is coordinated with the Advanced Air flight schedule on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
You can locate these schedules at estransit.com and then click on “Routes and Schedules” and then “Airport Flyer Service.”
The issue, of course, is that once you get to Mammoth you still have to figure out a way to get to the place you’re staying. Yes, you’re dropped at locations which put you on a local transit route, but it’s not door-to-door. And Mammoth doesn’t have a ton of capacity for “last mile” service, especially if 25-30 visitors get dropped in town all at once.
Figure that a private operator like Mammoth Taxi will already have its hands full taking care of its own airport customers.
A work in progress. A good option depending upon where one is staying or if one is traveling light without bags or kids.
Speaking of local transit, Public Works Director Haislip Hayes talked about another pilot program during the Mammoth Lakes Tourism community coffee Zoom call on June 25.
The program, a collaboration with Caltrans, aims to have LED tickers at the local bus shelters that would tell customers how long the wait will be until the next bus.
Like you’d have in the big city at a BART train station in the Bay Area.
The issue is getting all the various components to interface with each other – from the GPS in the bus to communicate with the apps on the phones and the LED tickers in the shelters.
There are currently two installed. One at the bus shelter on Main at the post office, and the other at the park-and-ride site at Tavern and Old Mammoth Rds.
Hayes said Wednesday that the Town was getting a quote that day to install eleven more.
