Previously in this series: The extent of expanded paid parking reservations after the ELD mandate
For years, states have closed rest areas temporarily or permanently as budget-cutting measures during funding crises. These continuing closures pose further setbacks to the availability of truck parking.
The problem is worsened by the scheduling pressures created by the electronic logging device mandate. Consequently, when President Trump’s infrastructure bill was introduced in February, midway through the ELD mandate’s soft enforcement period, its call for giving states the ability to commercialize rest areas and profit from them carried more import than past efforts at rest stop commercialization.
Rest areas built in the 1950s or earlier, as well as service plazas along toll roads, can offer commercial services. By law, rest areas built after 1960 can sell only vending machine items. The ability to commercialize these rest stops would give states the ability to add restaurants, fueling and maybe even additional parking.
Connecticut is an example of a parking crisis that’s liable to get much worse. A study showed the state needs at least 1,200 more truck parking spaces each night, says Connecticut Department of Transportation spokesperson Kevin Nursick. Yet the state is considering closure of its seven rest areas in July, with a total 222 truck parking spaces.
After budget cuts in 2016, Nursick says, the state DOT had to “curtail, eliminate, cut and postpone roughly $5 billion in projects.” That included shrinking operating hours for the rest areas from 24 to eight. After hours, portable toilets now take the place of restrooms.
Commercialization proponents envision a much more prosperous future for rest areas. “Our 57 rest areas see approximately 26 million people a year,” says Jimmy Parrish, rest area section supervisor for the North Carolina DOT. “If each of those people spent just $1, that would be $26 million. That would generate enough money to where it would pay for maintenance, construction of new facilities and renovation of existing facilities.”
