ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The Partnership to Save Highway Communities strongly urged members of Congress to oppose Amendment 217 of the American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act of 2012, which threatens to change the highway bill from a jobs creator into a jobs killer by jeopardizing thousands of businesses operating at the exits along the nation's interstate highway system.
Amendment 217, authored by Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio), Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), seeks to overturn the 50-year-old law prohibiting the sale of food, fuel and convenience items at interstate rest areas and instead allow states to use rest areas on interstate highways for nonhighway uses, including commercial activities.
A provision of the House transportation bill would allow states to privatize interstate rest areas, open them up to advertisers and let them sell a variety of goods "serving the traveling public," which under the bill's definition, includes lottery machines, reported the Huffington Post. Critics charge that privatizing interstate rest areas, which are generally prohibited from selling commercial goods and services under federal law, would harm gas stations and convenience stores at interchanges.
The bill limits the range of goods and services that could be sold, but "tourism-related" products would be fair game, as would ATMs and lottery machines. The bill also stipulates that states use money raised from privatizing rest areas on other highway stops. That would prevent larger businesses--a Best Buy, for example--from securing their own stops on the highway.
Dan Gilligan, president of the Petroleum Marketers Association of America (PMAA), said he was concerned that maps and lottery machines could be a first step to eventually opening up rest areas to a far wider range of business activities. PMAA represents companies that currently operate gas stations along interstates, but at interchanges and full highway exits.
"We see these little sleight-of-hand things here," he told the news outlet. "They're proposing to put in lottery ticket sales and small commercial enterprises--little things. We're concerned that's sort of a Trojan horse."
Amendment 217 threatens nearly 97,000 small businesses operating within a quarter mile of the interstate highway system, said the group, endangering the jobs of more than two million Americans.
"This Amendment is the biggest threat small business owners have ever faced under a highway bill," said Lisa Mullings, president and CEO of NATSO, and a member of the Partnership to Save Highway Communities.
"This highway bill was intended to create jobs, but if this amendment is allowed to pass it will pull the rug out from under the nation's interstate-based fast food franchisees, convenience stores, gas stations and truck stops. Commercializing interstate rest areas would put exit-based businesses at a considerable disadvantage, likely forcing many out of business. This will have a substantial effect on local communities, increase unemployment, decrease local tax revenues and impede overall economic growth."
In a recent study of commercial rest areas, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that commercializing rest areas nationwide could cause a 46% decrease in sales at interstate-serving gas stations, a 44% decrease in sales at interstate-serving restaurants and a 35% decrease in truck service sales at interstate-serving truckstops.
Statistics in LaTourette's and Kucinich's home state of Ohio bear this out. Along the Ohio Turnpike, where commercialization is permitted, just 109 businesses operate along the 239 miles of the Turnpike. Some 1,036 businesses, by comparison, thrive along the 212 miles of interstate 75, where businesses are allowed to compete on a level playing field at the interstate exit interchanges.
Amendment 217 would grant state governments the ability to set up shop directly along the interstate right-of-way. This location gives the states a major advantage over the businesses at the exits. Allowing commercial rest areas will not increase the number of hamburgers or gasoline gallons sold, but simply transfer sales away from the current competitive environment at highway exits, to the single contractor that pays the largest amount of rent to the state to operate on the shoulder of the Interstate.
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.
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