It appears that the seeds for a truck route around the City of Bishop have been planted in the form of two street projects.

On the long term plans to improve traffic circulation in the City of Bishop are two projects that would allow trucks to drive around Main Street Bishop, by heading out to the Bishop Airport and connecting back to 395 at Wye Road.

At the request of the Bishop City Council, in 2005, Caltrans released a study on how to reduce traffic on Bishop Streets. One of the recommendations was to build a truck route that would leave 395 near Schober Lane on the south end of town, connect to the airport, then in turn connect back to 395 and Highway 6 at the Wye.

The City proposal to extend Jay Street, on the south end of town, would connect to East Line Street to the East of Johnston Rd. Also in the works, a planned connection between Wye Road and the Bishop Airport. Both of these projects are designed to reduce truck traffic on Hanby Street by improving truck access to the airport, but another result could be to allow trucks to drive around town. Presumably, other traffic could, too.

Bishop Public Works Director David Grah says that these projects dont replace the truck route proposed by the Caltrans plan, or make the Caltrans proposal more likely to happen, but he adds that the two City projects do address the same sort of issues.

These City Street extension projects wouldnt require trucks to drive around town like one of the possibilities in the Caltrans proposal, instead truckers could find the route on their own and choose to take it or not.

The truck route proposed by Caltrans might not be built for another 20 years or more, depending on state funding, but the two local street extensions could start as soon as 2013. Grah said that a public meeting on the Jay Street extension could be scheduled in the next few months.


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