In an April 14 piece by Josiah Neeley titled, “This is why rest areas on federal highways are so boring,” Neeley incorrectly argues that the public would be well-served if government-run highway rest areas were permitted to sell food, fuel, and other commercial services. In fact, permitting the government to compete with private, off-highway businesses would result in higher costs for consumers, lost revenue for towns and localities nationwide, shuttered small businesses, and lost jobs.
What’s more, commercializing rest areas would obliterate any incentive for the private sector to invest in things that Neeley purports to support, such as increased investment in electric vehicle infrastructure and more robust food options for the motoring public.
Private businesses like Iowa 80, which Neeley mentions, thrive precisely because when Congress created the Interstate Highway System in 1956, lawmakers and community leaders understood that local businesses, jobs, and tax bases would shrink as motorists and truck drivers bypassed their cities and towns. For this reason, Congress prohibited new interstate rest areas from offering commercial services, such as food and fuel. Since then, businesses such as mine have clustered near interstate exits to provide these services to travelers.
This policy rationale is no less critical to towns and businesses today than it was 50 years ago.
Neeley’s suggestion that commercial activity at rest areas would drive deployment of infrastructure for electric charging is especially misguided. Allowing state governments to sell electric fuel will actually slow business investment in alternative fuels infrastructure. This equipment is expensive, and demand for it today remains quite low. Why would the private sector invest in it if they would be competing with the federal government?
In fact, we are currently drawing up plans to add six charging stations at our stop. The expected cost is more than $400,000, and that does not include any charge for the street or parking lot.
In the long-run, private sector investment is the only way to ensure widespread proliferation of alternative fuel infrastructure.
Commercializing interstate rest areas would create far more problems than it will solve. States and local communities will suffer when exit-based businesses and the jobs they support have to cut workers and potentially close. The towns and counties that rely on those businesses for local tax revenues will be challenged to make up the lost tax revenues they rely on from those businesses as well.
The federal ban on commercialization of rest areas works to create jobs, keep prices low for truckers and travelers, and collect fuel, sales, and property taxes.
I appreciate this opportunity to share the whole story.
Delia Moon Meier is owner of the Iowa 80 Truckstop in Walcott, Iowa.
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