Rest areas may become unnecessary
Transportation Department
By Merritt Melancon |
juliana.melancon@onlineathens.com | Story updated at 11:05 PM on Monday, October 24, 2005
Before Waffle House built a diner at every other off ramp in Georgia and before McDonald's had a restaurant at almost every single interstate exit, Georgia families on the road had few places to stop for rest during long car trips. The interstate rest stop served an important purpose, especially in rural areas.
But now, with the state's rural areas disappearing into suburbs, there aren't many stretches of highway where motorists can't find a fast-food restaurant or convenience store.
And highway planners and local officials continue to debate whether to invest more money into the system of rest areas or close them altogether.
The state Department of Transportation recently decided to close one of Gwinnett County's last rest areas - a public restroom and picnic facility just south of Suwanee where police arrested half a dozen people just this month. Over the years, it had become a haven for criminal activity and a traffic hazard.
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While the DOT doesn't have a formal plan to phase out interstate rest areas in Georgia, the closing of the one in Gwinnett shows a larger trend taking shape along the nation's highways, said Doug Hecox, a spokesman for the Federal Highway Administration.
"Many rest areas were originally built in remote locations along roadways where lavatory facilities and other services were unavailable," Hecox said. "As many formerly rural areas have become urbanized in the decades since, the need for rest areas has been minimized, if not eliminated outright, in certain locations."
In some suburban places, rest stops have become areas of illegal activity.
That's part of the problem with the soon-to-close stop in Gwinnett County, said Capt. Clyde Byers of the Suwanee Police Department.
"The majority of the people who congregated there had Gwinnett County license plates - these were not motorists who were just passing through," Byers said. "If you live in a county, why would you spend your time hanging out at a rest area there?"
Suwanee police and the DOT conducted stings for indecent exposure at the rest area about twice a year. The last one, earlier this month, yielded six arrests.
Despite the rest area's reputation as a place to meet up for illicit sexual activity, no serious crimes ever took place there, said Byers.
He remembers that someone did have their purse snatched there about a decade ago, but the police caught the suspect fairly quickly and no one was hurt.
However, after enough calls from truckers who had received unwanted solicitations or families with children who had happened upon a clandestine restroom tryst, it was time to shut the rest area down, Byers said.
"Personally, I don't have a problem with what two consenting adults do in their own homes or in a hotel room," he said. "But the public facilities are not the place for that."
It's this kind of activity that has ruined the reputation of rest areas and prompted the residents of several counties to oppose the DOT's plans to add an I-85 rest area, said Jackson County Sheriff Stan Evans.
"About 10 years ago, DOT wanted to put (a rest area) in Jackson County along I-85," Evans said. "The residents and business owners in the area opposed it. And so did I. We just didn't want what it brought. One of the reasons given for the closing of the rest area in Gwinnett County was, besides the traffic problems it was causing, the crime problem there. We certainly don't want that."
That proposed stop would have been between Braselton and Jefferson, Evans said.
Jackson County already plays host to two small rest areas on U.S. Highway 441, one near Center and one near Commerce. These pull-offs have no bathrooms and only a few picnic tables and a parking area.
Hardly anyone ever uses them, but county residents sometimes call to complain about loitering, indecent exposure and other illegal activities there, Evans said. Someone was raped at one of them several years back, he added.
"Some people will pull over from time to time to take a break there. And I understand the need to do that," he said. "But most of the time now, there are other places alongside the road where people can stop off, take a break and pick up a sandwich."
Still, DOT and local officials in other communities maintain that the rest areas provide a needed service. In the past decade, the DOT has built one new rest stop and welcome center on I-85 at the South Carolina border in Franklin County. It's also paid to replace two existing rest areas along Interstate 20 in Morgan County.
Franklin County doesn't have many problems at its rest area, said county Sheriff Steve Thomas.
"Every once in a while, we'll get a call that someone's trying to break into the snack machine, but that's about it," Thomas said.
Morgan County does have some problems at the I-20 rest areas, Sheriff Robert Markley said, but it's not worth scrapping the stops.
"The state has put a lot of money into redoing our two rest stops," Markley said. "They razed them and then rebuilt them with a lot more light in the parking lot. These areas are so isolated, we don't have the concentration of people to see the crimes or to do the crimes. People don't want to come this far to commit a crime, and we don't want them to."
No matter if the rest area is semi-urban and crowded with travelers or rural and lonely, motorists should take precautions when they stop off at one for a quick break, said Mike Healey, manager of the Metro-Atlanta AAA South.
"You need to be careful," Healey said. "If you're going to stop off at a rest stop, especially after dark, you need to stay aware of your surroundings. For many drivers, this will be their only time ever at this particular rest stop, so they will be very unfamiliar with their surroundings."
But interstate rest areas, even if some have become a bit shady, still are a valuable part of Georgia's road system, Healey added.
"People still use rest areas a lot," he said. "It just depends on what highway you're on. There are still highways out there where it's 60 miles between exits. And rest stops can be very useful when nature calls in that situation."