A provision in the transportation appropriations bill that would have allowed California to experiment with public/private partnerships at rest areas has died.

The proposal, which would have set up a pilot program allowing the state to get around federal prohibitions on private development of Interstate rest areas, was not in the revised version of the spending bill passed Friday by the House of Representatives. According to NATSO, the truckstop group that opposed California Rep. Jerry Lewis' proposal, "The pilot program would have gravely threatened [the] state's highway service industry." Interchange businesses would lose between 60-70 percent of sales if commercialization were to occur, according to a 1997 study by the University of Maryland.
"Caltrans spends only one-tenth of one percent of its budget on maintaining rest areas, hardly worth endangering a $7 billion industry," said NATSO President W. Dewey Clower, responding to Lewis' contention that funds received through commercialization could improve rest area conditions.
Lewis said he hoped California would choose rest areas in rural locations to minimize the threat to business, but the truckstop group said a truckstop's competition for truck business extends 500 miles.
According to published reports, Lewis may try to resurrect the measure in the future, especially if California transportation officials continue to support the idea.