The town was dominated by trucks and in winter inundated with traffic carrying skiers' on their way to the Australian Alps until 1992 when the Hume Highway opened and bypassed Mittagong and all the towns and villages of the Southern Highlands. The highway bypass was first evaluated as having a slightly negative impact on Mittagong's economy for about a year after its opening, due to the loss of traffic-serving business. Expectations were re-evaluated as mildly positive in 1994 taking into account hard-to-quantify benefits such as the increased appeal of the town as a place to live.