I have traveled four corners ( Kramer junction) for over 30 years because it was the way to Grandma's house. It has always been busy with trucks and cars. It is a good pit stop for many. I stop at pilot each and every time I go that way because they are very clean and friendly. I refuse to stop at the other stations because of uncleaniness and rude employee's. So I personally think a Pilot stop would be a good thing for Tehachapi.

The only truck stop I heard was coming here was a Loves, which are almost always very clean and nice.  I don't quite understand your hatred of Pilots though.  The company I used to drive for used Pilots for most of it's fueling locations- they're not great but they're certainly not the worst.  Petros are usually quite large, but some of the largest truck stops are Pilots.  Could be worse- could be a TA.  And comparing Kramer Junction to the Grapevine... are you seriously suggesting they have the same amount of truck traffic and warrant comparable amenities?

And as a truck driver, you should know how seriously DOT takes bypassing scales.  Sure, some use TWS for that purpose already, but those are the drivers CHP should be going after anyway (and there's a wonderfully convenient place to set up portable scales at the bottom of the hill).  I wish I had my map handy- but from what I see on the DOT website, TWS is not a "designated truck route" (obviously different from a "truck route").  So you're very unlikely to see the large 70' OTR trucks trying to use it.

All you need to eliminate most of your complaints is appropriate planning and good signage.  As for the litter, that would be the truck stop's responsibility.  And the accidents- a majority of truck/4-wheeler accidents are the fault of the 4-wheeler.  To get rid of those, you'd need to get rid of idiots.

I would hope that they could put a truck scales at the bottom of willow springs; there are too  many people who have to drive that route, and with the need for another lane for passing on that hill...the headaches of moving wind towers and blades to the Oak Creek sites will be compounded with those who are sneaking up the back way.  The CHP and the County are getting/bleeding extra revenue for escorting trucks carrying 130' blades to the windparks over several more years...

If each truck carries one blade, and each tower have three blades, and there are 500 towers; and each of the towers have four sections, which are carried on four separate trucks...how much revenue can the county share with the CHP, before the scales are in place?  I am asking you guys because I never made it into algebra,  and math problems like these give me a headache.  So much for my next career as a math teacher; I think I wll stick to sharing videos about windpower.

My point on Pilot Truck stops is exactly what eekitsaspider and madcow are saying, yes Kramer junction has always been busy but since Pilot built there we now have trucks parked EVERY where around, legally and illegally blocking traffic , double parking and dumping litter all around, Pilot does not go all around and pick up trash. Yes Pilots are clean inside and out on their property but as madcow said, his company has fueled there for years, that's what they do, they fuel and go. Trucking is not what it was 10 - 20 years ago, truck drivers were "the knights of the road" today you need to be very cautious if your approched by a truck driver if your stranded in the middle nowhere,some that are from another area don't care about our area and will litter and if a truck stop would provide enough overnight parking this would be contained to their property along with the over crowding and illegal parking and yes I am comparing the Grapevine truck stops to Kramer Junction because Petro would have provided enough parking to accomidate the increase of truck traffic and new visitors for overnight parking. Neither of you said anything about the overload of traffic entering and exiting the Fwy. Well I quess you did with the appropriate planning and signage but that is what I said, sort of, and I don't think that was a requirement for the approval to build so after it's built we will see these problems and then it will be us who are financially responsible to meke the needed changes.

I haul oversize, over weight, over height constuction equipment and I use TWS when I can just to avoid the scales, I don't ever want to vollunteer to be inspected or delayed, madcow you obviously worked for a big company who watched everything you did, but there are 1000's of companies that don't and plenty of drugs and $ to run hard and those coming from out of state running hard will use TWS. I am not opposed to a pilot if it's done right and I think our city wants the revenue too badley to have considered all of the repercusions that were going to see 

The Pilot at Kramer Junction supposedly has 50 parking spaces (I think they exaggerate, lol!).  If I remember correctly, the Loves here is supposed to have 90 spaces.  That's a fairly decent-sized truck stop and it sounds like an adequate amount of space.  Petros are very large and generally only located in very high-traffic areas, which the 58 is not.  Plus in the grapevine area, there is a huge Flying J at the top and a medium-sized TA at Laval, to go along with the large Petro.  I generally avoided Petros myself- they always were full of old truckers sitting at the restaurants, drinking coffee, smoking and bitching, then idling their truck all night.  I preferred a nice Bosselmans (heh, Pilot) whenever I was by one.

The traffic entering and exiting the freeway does concern me somewhat, but it all depends on the exit used and the provisions they put in place to make traffic flow smoothly at the exit/entrance.  The Tehachapi Blvd exit for WB is low-traffic now, but the curve is a little tight for exiting at freeway speeds, so they would need plenty of signs there.  That would slow the WB side some.  Is there an EB exit there?  I think the WB entrance would be tight for a truck too, entering right onto a bridge.  But the EB entrance would be perfectly fine.  And there's no room on the shoulders for trucks to clog up the ramps.

Since you drive oversized loads on TWS, do you happen to know what's with the giant yellow beam sitting out there right now?  My husband saw it and can't figure out what it's doing out there.

to start with i'm sure your not a madcow. but to comment on subject at hand, i haven't been on TWS for a little while but if the trailer is large and just sitting there they are a 9 axle at least and require at least 2 pilot cars if not CHP escort also and can't move during certain hours and weekends so their probably waiting until sunday night.

Tehachapi blvd has e/b & w/b exits & entrances on both sides of the fwy and on the w/b side the exit is already hard to get out onto tehachapi blvd. Another thing i just thought of is that we have Monroe High down by the cement mill so we have school buses and teenage kids driving cars now dealing with poorly trained or ignorant truck drivers at a dangerous intersection.

I think it is just not the best place for a truck stop that caters to drivers who generally are in a hurry to just fuel and go.

I'd hate to be the owner of that one lonely house out there.

I too like Bosselman's. There's one on a back road (i forget which) in Texas going into Austin I really liked.

Also I can't stand talking to most truck drivers, they're always jumping into your conversations, talking to you non stop even if you act like you don't want to talk to them. I'm not your typical truck driver, I don't turn on my c.b. unless i want to here about traffic or if i "got to go" and need to see where the cops are, but i don't ask I just listen.  Drive safe !

I was always the same way with the cb- too many people trying to chat me up.  Luckily I drove mostly at night, so I didn't need to deal with most of the other drivers.  I liked Texas until I got past San Antonio- then it would get really gross.  We had to go to Laredo a lot.  Of course, I hated going to any of the border towns.  I worked for Schneider (yep, big orange trucks! haha!) and we had to remove all of the lights on the trailers we dropped because they'd get stolen so quickly.  Crazy down there.

Hey, do you happen to know a good place up here to get a medical card renewed?  Mine's expiring soon.  I don't drive anymore, but I figure I should still keep it active in case I need to.  I always went to a place in Lancaster (the exam went along the lines of: "Can you hear me? Yes? Ok, hearing test passed...").

I'm sorry you drove for schneider, I don't know how many for sure but I know I ran over at least 100 of those baby schneider eggs someone keeps leaving on the zip lines on the hwy.

Terry Warsaw does med exams, I don't remember if he has the forms or you need to bring one from the dmv with you, but it is as complicated as the one in Lancaster that you went to.

Have you ever wondered, why is it in California when talking about fwy's we say "take the 58", or "go down the 5" but in every other state we would say " take hwy 58" or " go down I-5" it's weird but we do this

Hah!  I haven't heard about the baby schneider eggs in forever!  That brings back memories!  I can't even remember all the nicknames for those orange trucks.  Even our freaking duct tape was orange.  But I did really like working for them- my husband and I ran expedited and they treated us very well for it.

I think that taking out the "I-" or "hwy" is a regional thing- probably has to do with familiarity with the roads and also that west coast need to talk as quickly as possible.  We abbreviate a lot.  Plus I've heard it's mostly on the west coast that people use time to refer to distance, like "The store is 10 minutes away" instead of "The store is 5 miles away".