George Andrews Wrote:
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> U.S. Highway 395 is a much - used Back - Door
> route between Reno - Sparks and the Inland Empire
> of San Bernardino / Riverside area. Any
> improvements to that road are well - deserved. I
> had the DIS - pleasure to drive that route - only
> Twice - when I drove for Conway Western Express
> out of Santa Fe Springs, CA. You will go over TWO
> different passes of 6000 feet, and another of 7000
> Ft if you stay on 395 the entire way.
> Back in The Day - many truckers In The Know
> heading to Reno and especially Sparks ( lotsa
> warehouses there ) would turn off 395 just BEFORE
> the steep climb to Conway Summit, and wind around
> through Walker Lake to Fallon, then Hwy. 50 West
> to Interstate 80 at Fernley, NV., then a short
> drive to Reno / Sparks, thus avoiding the traffic
> between Carson City & Reno. Nowadays I suspect the
> Interstate 580 Highway route through Carson City
> is a better route, ( I haven't driven it- yet )
> although it would still require traversing most of
> the worst parts of U.S. 395. The Northbound climb
> to Conway Summit is a real grind, any time of the
> year.

I had an assignment to go to Bishop a couple of times a year, when I was doing highway planning, to attend the interregional meetings covering routes like 58, 14, 395, and for a number of years was involved with the privare toll projects like the now concelled "High Desert Corridor" Between I-5 amd I-15 via Palmdale/Lancaster. I always tried to make sure they scheduled the Bishop meeting during trout season, and on a Friday morning, with plenty of time left to fish...

The segment between 58 on 395 should be a full freeway, but Counties (CTC's-look it up)
control all freeway funding these days, and the majority in SB County live in the Basin, not the Desesrt. It has also fallen afoul of "evil roads" syndrome, not unlike the potentially privately funded, profitable, toll financed High Desert Corridor, now killed by "evil roads" syndrome. It is kind of like "evil Thomas" syndrome, but with "do gooder" psuedo environmental types, role playing as the "nimby's", who, in the name of a better "environment", would prefer that the trucks diverted around LA, should rather continue to go through LA, using more fuel, creating more congestion, and emitting more pollution... As I said in another post today, there is no evidence of a shortage of stupid out there, these days....

As this is a rail chat board, the High Desert Corridor has been kept as a Brightline High Speed Rail Corridor with a cleared EIS. Caltran Bishop has done what is needed on the Inyo County end of 395 pretty well. In San Bernardino County this is now becoming an increasingly expensive urbanized freeway on the southern end above I-15, if action to do something isn't going to be happening real soon?