Rest areas as profit areas

The Commonwealth Transportation Board has decided to put 19 of Virginia’s 42 interstate rest areas up on figurative cinder blocks, closing them to the motoring public to save a cool $9 million.

This has prompted many a frowny face among politicians of all stripes, joined by indignant luminaries of the hospitality industry in Virginia. Most are sounding as if the right to a rest stop is implied in the Constitution or maybe the Declaration of Independence — something about that Pursuit of Happiness thing.
However, let us ponder what the Commonwealth Transportation Board really ought to be thinking about when it comes to choosing between maintaining asphalt roads or porcelain toilets. The foremost mission of the Department of Transportation should be building and maintaining roads. All else should be secondary.

But when it comes to the subject of interstate rest areas, Virginia has the equation backward. While the Commonwealth Transportation Board looks at rest areas as an expense to cut, they should be thinking of these as a revenue source to fund more asphalt for roads.
The board need only turn its gaze eastward to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel for an object lesson.
There, on one man-made island, a private vendor leases space to operate a restaurant. Weary, hungry travelers, who might also have need of a “rest area,” can dine on everything from 10 seafood selections, five hot entrees and 22 sandwich choices, all thoughtfully served with French fries.
Let’s imagine for a moment what it might be worth to a franchiser like McDonald’s to have a long-term lease on an enlarged and improved rest area on Interstate 81, for example. $500,000? What if you threw in a gasoline dealer like Shell? Another half-million bucks? You think the State of Virginia might get $1 million a year in long-term lease revenues from one of these rest stops?

Let’s see, if that’s true, then there’s an upside potential of $19 million a year. So not only does the state save $9 million by ceasing maintenance on these 19 rest areas they shuttered, but also by leasing them out, the DOT could stand to gain $19 million for an overall swing of $28 million a year. That ought to buy a few dump truck loads of asphalt, eh?
The state DOT should be in the road-building business, and reap the financial benefits of leasing the roadside services piece to the private sector. Let the paving begin.