Virginia seeks to privatize rest areas

[BlueJessamine]

Source: Boston Globe

WASHINGTON - Which will it be: fewer places to stop on the highway to catch 40 winks, or fast-food galore at rest areas? That’s the choice facing Congress as it considers whether to relax a decades-old ban on businesses along the nation’s interstate highways.

The restriction was instituted during construction of the highway system, in response to community fears that motorists would bypass local businesses and devastate their economies. Only enterprises that existed before 1960 were exempt.

But now officials in Virginia, one of a number of financially strapped states closing rest areas, want to privatize the sites in order to maintain an important public convenience - and maybe even make money.

The Partnership to Save Highway Communities, whose members include the Association of Kentucky Fried Chicken Franchisees, the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers, and McDonald’s Corp., has opposed Virginia’s efforts.


Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/09/01/virginia_seeks_to_privatize_rest_areas/

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snip

Holly Alfano, vice president of government affairs for NATSO, a trade group that represents truck stops and travel plazas, said businesses off the interstate could not compete with commercial operations located in rest areas.

[kegler14]

1. Several W.Va. rest areas have private businesses. How come?

[Ikonoklast]

7. If you are talking about the WV Turnpike, those are franchisees on a toll road.

I don't believe there are any private businesses in any public interstate rest areas in WV.

[panader0]

2. Virginia seeks to rest private parts...............

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

[T Wolf]

3. Just wait until you have to pay to pee. At least it is better now than back when the only

facilities were Howard Johnsons.

[tomm2thumbs]

12. I remember waking up as a kid in the back seat, staring up into that teal and orange roof many times

as we pulled in to get a room on our way across the country.



That and Stuckeys.

[Craftsman]

20. As long as there are trees you have a place to wizz.

[I Have A Dream]

29. Easy for a man to say.

:P

[sui generis]

4. cool. toll roads. toll rest areas. toll bathrooms. toll breathing.

I wonder if there are stipulations to those grants? If I were a private interest I'd insist on charging to park in my rest area, PLUS Duty Free stores and international law boundaries so I could run my chicken and dude ranch whore houses without interference from the gummint.

Also I'd like a casino, my own currency and police force. Give me all that and I'll even tell you where Jimmy Hoffa is buried.

[Soylent Brice]

8. ah, it's posts like this that makes it all worth while.

:rofl:

thank you.

[liberalmike27]

15. More Regressive Taxes

To replace the ones we've removed from the poor, overtaxed, burdened, rich.

Like I've said, we're going to have to raise taxes. Do you want more of these types, sales, gas, tolls, per/mile taxes on your car, property, or do we all want the rich people who haul in most of the money each year, yet still whine about being fabulously rich, like little ingrates, pay more in taxes?

I don't know why it is even a question, outside of the fact that most of the talking heads are just such rich people, and they get real snarky, even the supposedly "liberal" Katie Couric, when you ask them to chip in a bit. Like 30 years in the business hasn't done her right? And wealth, well that's even more concentrated than income.

How fricking much is enough? We've got to pay to pee, but we can't tax people more who earn, hell I don't even like to use that word, how about get paid, that much every year.

Why do we feel sorry for these people, when they've been pretty much responsible for putting these assholes in office that have sent our jobs away, refuse bargaining on prescription drugs, don't want us to have health care, are pretty much trying to remove any last power of redress in the court system for suing them for any fucking thing. How can one not see the brainwashing in action, when people feel sorry for the poor farmer (fictional, by the way) that pays the "death tax" yet we never even mention the actual poor anymore, who is at risk of death through homelessness, starvation, and bad health care. What a world we live in.

[lib2DaBone]

5. Let me guess.. you'll now have to pay $3 to enter the rest area..

[pattmarty]

17. If that comes to pass, I'll pull over and piss on the shoulder, and I ain't shitin'.

[JVS]

27. I'll one up you. I'll pull over and piss on the shoulder, and I am indeed shitting too!

[bananas]

6. The Association of Kentucky Fried Chicken Franchisees?

[high density]

9. This article left me thoroughly confused.

We already have highways with roadside businesses on toll roads. Most of them charge an inflated price for gas and food. What is the harm of expanding this to the rest of the interstate highway system?

[Freddie Stubbs]

11. The businesses on the highway exits are afraid of the competition

[Wizard777]

10. It's stupid. They'll be replacing 20 in town revenue sources with 1 or 2 out on the Highway.

They're so obviously cutting their own tax source throats there has to be a special interest behind this.

[meow2u3]

13. That'll be $2 to use the ladies' room, ma'am

(Or to use the men's room, sir)

[brendan120678]

14. How much for a man to use the ladies room???

:hide:

[WinkyDink]

19. None; he'll go into the woods behind the building.

[Deja Q]

24. Well piss on you!

:rofl:

Could you imagine that; a privatized rest room, the attendant demands the fee upfront (gotta pay gotta gotta pay right now), and the poor human has to whiz...

Meanwhile, commie pinko laws make it illegal to whiz behind a tree where voyeurs would have to go out of their way to catch sight of anything...

*sigh*

[liberal N proud]

16. If its privatized, it is no longer a "public convenience"

"But now officials in Virginia, one of a number of financially strapped states closing rest areas, want to privatize the sites in order to maintain an important public convenience - and maybe even make money."

[crikkett]

18. teh stupid n/t

[tanyev]

21. We already have privatized rest areas. They're called McDonald's.

[Deja Q]

22. Well that takes the piss. Literally...

Only the used ones will ever get cleaned, by people who aren't going to give a damn (despite this amusing dilettante theory called "supply and demand", there will always be a need for janitors and the pay is too low that the supply (workers) would be bothered), and many will fall into disrepute, be used as hooker joints, Larry Craig's new hangout, ditto for George Michael as he's known to do drugs in them too...

Privatization, based on its track record, is an unmitigated disaster.

[SteelPenguin]

23. I'm not against this

I drive across PA regularly on the turnpike, which as a toll road has rest stops about every 30 miles or so. The rest stops are privately owned and operated, and they lease space to chains from McDonalds to Starbucks to Sbarros, etc. Some have seemingly non-chain places as well.

The rest rooms are free and generally clean. they have large dining areas and when we travel and pack our lunches nobody has ever harrassed us for eating our picnic lunches on the outside tables, or inside the main buildings.

I have no complaints about them.

Meanwhile when I've driven on other ones you never know what your'e going to get. You might drive an hour on 80 and see nothing. You migth stop at a public rest stop and most don't even have bathrooms. If they do have bathrooms they can be clean, but they're far more likely to be gross than the private ones which have employees there 24/7 on regular cleaning duty.

The government doesn't have to provide every service. I can see the argument that it'll impinge on the local businesses, but as far as public vs private, I see no reason they should be public if a private entity is willing to take up the cost of cleaning bathrooms, and providing picnic tables, if they're also allowed to sell gas and hamburgers.

Sometimes the private sector DOES do a better job. Healthcare? No. Rest Stops? Yes.

[ConcernedCanuk]

25. Ahhh, our human progress - - I remember the days in my own country(long gone now)

.
.
.

when my parents would take us 4 kids for a drive, or extended holiday.

There were picnic tables on the side of the highway, with garbage cans and outhouses, maintained by the highway department.

Father made a game out of getting us kids to clean up the picnic site by promising a nickle (5 cents was BIG money to us kids in the 50's) to whomever could get the most garbage picked up by the time they had set up and made us a meal.

Father's secret to success was he ended up giving us ALL a nickle because we did so good, and an extra penny or two for the REAL winner . .

and I adopted Father's principle of always leaving a place cleaner than I found it, whether it be a campsite or a rental unit.

BUT

the powers that be have decided that rather than educate the public - they offload the responsibility to money-grabbing businesses.

I sorta understand it - taxes and all - we have a "pick up" session on our lonely back road that only has about a dozen dwellings where every spring we gather a volunteer crew to pick up the garbage thrown on the side of the road by people with cars so small that they have to throw every candy wrapper and pop-can out the window on the way by.

We usually get at least a pick-up load that nets about $4 in beer bottles/cans, the odd tire, lots of plastic bags - garbage that someone couldn't make it to the dump or the end of their driveway and so on - -

so I sorta understand the closing of the free picnic sites.

Too many of us humans are lazy slobs - -

(sigh)

[KittyWampus]

26. If they do this, only a Virginia based franchise should get the lease.

[Mika]

28. It'll go to a European or Asian joint venture with their own gov.

With all of their socialistic death panels they can afford it. ;)

[jmowreader]

30. Holly Alfano is, of course, dead wrong

Privatized rest areas are common on turnpikes. The private businesses off the turnpikes don't seem to be affected by the private businesses on the turnpike.

So...let me get this straight: This Partnership to Save Highway Communities, whose members include KFC restaurants, McDonalds restaurants and gas stations, is going to be negatively impacted when the rest areas are privatized and KFCs, McDonalds and gas stations are built in them. Yeah, right. It's doubtful the privatized rest areas will charge you to use the can; the travel plazas--privatized rest areas--on the NJ turnpike don't charge for restroom access or parking, and come to think of it private businesses off the interstate don't do it either, so you're not likely to be asked for a quarter for the toilet.

Oh, and Holly...before you say anything else about how the private businesses along interstates with privatized rest areas can't compete, you might want to get hold of the managers of the Petro or the TA in Breezewood, PA, or the Petro in Bordentown, NJ. Or...ah, screw it, every turnpike has truck stops along it, and they're doing okay. If you're so upset about it, get your members to design mini-centers that will fit on a regular size rest area. A rest area isn't big enough for fuel islands, but it IS large enough to hold a building that has restaurants, a convenience store and showers.