Highway Rest Stops Fall Victim To Budget Woes

wsj.com:

As millions of Americans take to the road for the holiday weekend, a humble highway fixture is under attack.

Later this month, cash-strapped Virginia plans to barricade entrances and switch off the plumbing and electricity at nearly half its highway rest areas. Other states also are lowering budgetary axes on the public pit stops that have lined the interstate highway system since its creation in 1956.

Read the whole story: wsj.com

Comments

[Tom95134]

If you gatta go,
you gatta go,
Rest stop or no.

[northstar11]

if we take away the places to go------they will stop going-----problem solved---- rightwing logic.

[wadenelson1]

As long as Americans reject ANY vote to further raise taxes, the solution is to lease rest stops out to individuals or companies who will clean and maintain them, AND charge the public a modest entrance fee.

Hire a single state inspector who does nothing but driving around inspecting them, and write the contracts so the state can immediately dump, err, replace contractors who doo, err, do a poor job maintaining them.

I'd gladly pay a buck for a nice clean place to do my business, especially if it had good lighting, a washroom attendant, and security cameras to improve safety. Fast food outlets often have nasty bathrooms.

Oh, and remind me to put a 1/2 roll of TP in the glove box.

[sauceruney]

better yet, make all the freeways toll-roads at a profit for the state

[lysistrata]

Texas did something right and build some nice rest areas, it beats any of the rundown depressing filling station stops off the road. It is not a luxury to have a nice rest area.

[MisterHands]

Tragic-- where will our Republican leaders go on date night?

[Moshe]

Depending on their preferences, Argentina or airport bathrooms.

[CitizenIndie]

Gee, however will we survive without rest stops?

I wonder how we got along without them in years past... oh yeah, people just pulled over to the side of the road to pee or stopped into towns for sleeps and eats.

[tiredofthesameoldstuff]

Go try crossing the desert in the US. There are no towns to go into. Also these rest stops often have food and several of them actually have places to eat and get info on hotels in the area.

[Decipherer]

And all sorts of drugs and other "amusements" readily available, too.

[byla]

This isn't the past, this is the present...And as someone with a chronic illness for 30 years, peeing isn't always the issue. I've been known to hit every rest stop along a route. It's a medical necessity.

Not only that, for safety reasons, you want truckers to be able to pull over and catch an hour or so of much needed sleep. The alternative is a trucker driving on over the counter stimulants, or causing a wreck because he can't keep his eyes open.

[robinhood1]

You want to see budget woes? Wait until the guy in the picture gets his Medicare card!

[woundedduck]

Considering that he and his entire family head to the county emergency room whenever they have the sniffles, his Medicare bill will be way, way, way, way smaller.