ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- A bill unveiled this week threatens thousands of businesses operating at the exits along the nation's Interstate Highway System, jeopardizing the jobs of more than two million Americans, the Partnership to Save Highway Communities, a coalition of highway businesses, said. The legislation, authored by Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), would permit the states to sell food and fuel from interstate rest areas.
The coalition said that Kirk's legislation would pull the rug out from under the nation's interstate-based fast-food franchisees, convenience stores, gas [image-nocss] stations and truckstops at a time when the businesses are just starting to see signs of recovery from the recession.
"This legislation does nothing more than grant state governments a monopoly directly on the interstate shoulder or median. The right-of-way location of the commercial rest areas gives the state a major advantage over the businesses at the exit," said Lisa Mullings, president and CEO of NATSO, a member of the coalition representing truckstops. "On interstates where there are commercial rest areas, there are 50% fewer businesses at the exits. By changing this law, the government isn't creating any new demand from travelers for hamburgers or gasoline. They are simply transferring sales from exits to state rest areas."
Small towns and counties are benefactors, with interstate exit businesses paying more than $600 million a year to local governments, helping to fund schools, police and fire departments and other local services. The legislation will result in town and county governments seeing some of their top taxpayers threatened, potentially transferring state budget woes onto local governments.
The groups contend that Congress effectively privatized interstate services in the late 50s by passing legislation that prohibited commercial development of rest areas after 1960. The law successfully encouraged investment at the exits, with some 97,000 small businesses operating today within a quarter-mile of the Interstate Highway System.
The Partnership to Save Highway Communities is a coalition of associations, corporations, small businesses and other stakeholders that share a common goal: preserving the valuable relationships between interstate highway motorists and community businesses serving their needs. The coalition is dedicated to ensuring that interstate highway rights-of-way remain free of commercial development.
Click herefor a Partnership to Save Highway Communities issue briefing.
Andclick here to read a CSP Exclusive, "Losing Sleep Over Rest Areas."
Several members of the coalition are also sending a letter to the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works as well as the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee urging them to strongly oppose a provision in the Obama Administration's draft transportation legislation that would allow state governments to install electric-vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure at rest areas and charge a fee for it.
The letter, signed by NATSO, the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America (SIGMA), the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) and the Petroleum Marketers Association of America (PMAA), says allowing EV charging infrastructure at rest areas would effectively roll back the 50-year prohibition on rest area commercialization.
The organizations, representing more than 160,000 fuel retailers nationwide, said fuel retailers already are investing in EV charging stations; however, if state governments preempt consumer demand for this new technology, they will effectively destroy the incentive for private-sector investment.
The fuel retailers strongly oppose the inclusion of any provision in the transportation reauthorization legislation to allow EV charging infrastructure at rest areas, and are requesting that this proposal not be included in the legislation.
The fuel retailers said they have invested heavily along the nation's interstate system and have developed the most accessible and convenient locations for travelers to refuel their vehicles as they travel throughout the United States. As vehicles and fuels have changed over the last 100 years, the fuel industry has evolved to meet the needs of their customers. As the next generation of vehicles emerge, fuel retailers will continue to serve their customers and provide energy of all kinds to meet the needs of consumers, the groups said.
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