The Fight for Rest Areas PMAA, NATSO partner against commercialization of state-run interstate rest stops
By Linda Abu-Shalback Zid
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ARLINGTON, Va. -- The Petroleum Marketers Association of America (PMAA) and the National Association of Truck Stop Operators (NATSO) have banded together to fight state efforts to commercialize rest areas. Federal law, on the books since the creation of the Interstate Highway System in 1956, prohibits rest areas from offering commercial services, such as food and fuel, at interstate rest areas built after Jan. 1, 1960. Such commercialization could be devastating to the 60,000 businesses and 2 million jobs along U.S. Interstate highways, according to PMAA president Dan Gilligan.
"If you make it convenient for people and they just ride into these rest stops and can get everything they need without getting off the interstate at the interchange, that would severely hurt any of the businesses within 10 miles of that rest area or maybe even 20 miles," Gilligan told CSP Daily News.
According to an article in the Free Lance-Star, some states have gotten around the ban with commercialized rest areas that existed before the federal ban passed or by locating commercialized rest areas on toll roads. In Maryland, two such plazas generate $40 million in food and beverage revenue, and $16 million in fuel revenue annually, according to the report.
California, Washington and Oregon would also like to see such rest area revenue and submitted a proposal to the Department of Transportation and the Federal Highways Administration in October 2008 to allow commercialized facilities along Interstate 5 from Canada to Mexico.
And in March, Virginia's Commonwealth Transportation Board filed a resolution urging Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to work with state lawmakers to fight for commercialization. Recent cost-cutting measures mean Virginia plans to close 25 of the state's 41 rest areas, for a potential program savings of $12 million, but the board hopes commercialization will permit the interstate rest areas to remain open. (Click here for previous CSP Daily News coverage.)
Such efforts are not new; Gilligan said it has been tried two or three times in the past 10 years. "Every time there's a highway bill, there are certain members of Congress that try to get some language in to permit the commercialization of rest stops. The industry has had to make efforts to give the other point of view and fight it—and we've been successful."
He added, "It's purely unfair competition. You can't have a government competing with private enterprise. Governments don't have to be profitable, they don't have to be accountable to a board of directors, they don't have to have a return on investment, and if they're short on money, they can just raise taxes. Private enterprise does not have unlimited funds or unlimited resources, and they must look at the bottom line."
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According to an article in the Free Lance-Star, some states have gotten around the ban with commercialized rest areas that existed before the federal ban passed or by locating commercialized rest areas on toll roads. In Maryland, two such plazas generate $40 million in food and beverage revenue, and $16 million in fuel revenue annually, according to the report.