ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The Partnership to Save Highway Communities has urged the U.S. Senate to oppose Amendment 1742 of highway transportation legislation, S. 1813, which jeopardizes thousands of businesses operating at the exits along the nation's highways.
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Amendment 1742, authored by Senator Rob Portman (D-Ohio), seeks to overturn the law prohibiting the sale of food, fuel and convenience items at interstate rest areas and instead allow state departments of transportation (DOTs) to shore up budget shortfalls on the backs of small businesses by permitting commercial activities in rest areas along the highway.
Portman's amendment threatens nearly 97,000 small businesses operating within a quarter mile of the Interstate Highway System, endangering the jobs of more than 2 million Americans.
"Senator Portman has said that his top priority in the U.S. Senate is to promote job creation and help Ohio small businesses to succeed," said NATSO president and CEO Lisa Mullings, and a member of the Partnership to Save Highway Communities (click here to view a complete list of members of the Partnership to Save Highway Communities). "Yet he has introduced an amendment that poses the single biggest threat small business owners have ever faced under a highway bill. Contrary to claims that he will support the private sector, this initiative will pull the rug out from under the nation's interstate-based fast food franchisees, convenience stores, gas stations and truck stops and instead allow state governments to monopolize the business of motorists."
Contrary to claims that Portman's amendment represents a move to privatize rest areas, Congress effectively privatized highway services long ago. In 1960, Congress prohibited states from offering commercial services at rest areas along the Interstate Highway System specifically so that private sector entities would grow and provide services to the motoring public.
"The government is not in the business of selling food and fuel; the private sector is already meeting that need," said Mullings. "Sen. Portman's amendment is a move to expand government, at a cost to existing businesses."
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 Portman'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 1742 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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