Question about highway rest stop laws

[Anny_Middon]

Illinois has rest areas along most interstates. These include washrooms and vending machines.

Iowa has a wonderful rest area devoted to writers, with quotes from some of their works and statues of quill pens and the like. I’m guessing this is due to the well-known Iowa Writers Workshop. It’s a fun stop, but again has just washrooms and vending machines.

Along the tollroads Illinois has “oases.” These used to have Howard Johnson’s restaurants, but now each has a few fast food places. They sell gasoline, which used to be priced very high, but a law was passed several years ago that restricts the gas prices to some relationship to gas prices at stations within a certain geographic area of the oasis. Nowadays gas at the oasis is pretty reasonably priced.

Most often the oasis spans the tollroad, with easy on-and-off ramps from each direction. Once my SIL was driving and stopped for coffee at an oasis about an hour from her home. She called my brother in a panic – her car had been stolen. When he arrived, he parked next to her car. She had gotten turned around and had looked for her car in the lot on the other side of I-294. The police said this happened fairly frequently.

[Tired_and_Cranky]

@Ludovic

I’ve driven I-95 dozens of times between NY and FL and have not seen one real restaurant on a rest stop.

In fact, I have only seen restaurants on toll road service areas such as the NYS Thruway and the Florida Turnpike, although that is just my personal experience.

There are rest areas with restaurants on I-95 in New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia at least. I think the restaurant rest areas stop in North Carolina and don’t start again. Heading in the other direction away from New York, Connecticut has several too.

[Telemark]

NH just built a pair of large rest areas on I-93 where previously there had been just the State Liquor Stores and vending machines. Now there’s several stores, a diner, gas stations, and of course, the State Liquor Stores.

[Balthisar]

I guess I should chime in for Ontario since it’s seems there aren’t many Canadians here.

I always appreciate driving in Ontario and stopping in (IIRC) “service centers” (sorry, can’t remember the French name, maybe “aires”). Easy on, easy off, and lots of fast food options and a bit of tourist shopping in case of needing a quick souvenir for a friend’s kid.

The gas stations are (were, maybe changed) annoying. US cards don’t work at the pump, whereas every other gas station in Ontario seem to be okay with my US cards.

[Hocus_Pocus]

@Morgenstern

We have them all along the freeways in California too. We call them cities. Rest stops are parking lots with an occasional restroom. View areas are rest stops overlooking pretty areas.

This is due to not only not having toll roads on freeways, but also the weather. In many of the states that have these rest stops winter weather can force motorists to hunker down for hours until a blizzard has passed. California doesn’t really have that issue (most places where major highways get snowstorms have cities & towns nearby).

[Voyager]

@Morgenstern

We have them all along the freeways in California too. We call them cities. Rest stops are parking lots with an occasional restroom. View areas are rest stops overlooking pretty areas.

No we don’t. I assume you’ve never been to a real rest stop/service area. In NJ, for instance, the Turnpike with tolls has rest stops, but I95, without tolls, does not. The Pennsylvania Turnpike has them, I80 doesn’t. Interstates that are not toll roads has restaurants off the exits just like in California.

[D_Anconia]

@Anny_Middon

They sell gasoline, which used to be priced very high, but a law was passed several years ago that restricts the gas prices to some relationship to gas prices at stations within a certain geographic area of the oasis. Nowadays gas at the oasis is pretty reasonably priced.

Do you have a cite for such a law? I’m not finding anything on it in a Google search. Thanks.

[Just_Asking_Questions]

@Siam_Sam

I drove I-40 the length of Oklahoma at least twice a year in much of the 1970s, and I remember more than one MacDonald’s accessible only from the interstate, between the east-and west-bound lanes. McDonald’s for all their faults surely doesn’t build illegal sites, do they?

I believe you are thinking of The Glass House, in Vinita. It’s on I44, which is a tollway. I always stop there. Love my Micky-Ds while watching the traffic go by. They’ve remodeled and it has a Subway as well now. (But I take Rte 66 rather than the tollway, and you can go in through the employee’s parking lot.)

There aren’t any isolated freeway-access only business on I40.

[furryman]

I’ve been from Maryland to Florida on I 95 dozens of times and the only restaurants in rest stops I’ve ever see are in Maryland.
The restaurants in Florida all all on the turnpike so maybe there’s different rules.
Don’t know about the one on 95 in Maryland though.

[DrDeth]

@Morgenstern

We have them all along the freeways in California too. We call them cities. Rest stops are parking lots with an occasional restroom. View areas are rest stops overlooking pretty areas.

Except no food is served besides some vending or perhaps a coffee table, all serviced by NPOs.

[doreen]

@Voyager

No we don’t. I assume you’ve never been to a real rest stop/service area. In NJ, for instance, the Turnpike with tolls has rest stops, but I95, without tolls, does not.

But part of the Turnpike is I 95 - from Exit 6 to Exit 18. And there are rest areas on that segment.

[Telemark]

@doreen

But part of the Turnpike is I 95 - from Exit 6 to Exit 18. And there are rest areas on that segment.

Everything is on the Interwebs - http://www.i95exitguide.com/rest-areas/

A quick scan shows that ME, MA, CT, NJ, DE, and MD have restaurants at rest areas along I-95.

NH, RI, VA, NC, SC, GA, and FL have no restaurants at rest areas along I-95.

NY has no rest areas on I-95.

[Anny_Middon]

@D_Anconia

Do you have a cite for such a law? I’m not finding anything on it in a Google search. Thanks.

I misspoke somewhat when I said it’s a law – it seems it’s Illinois Tollway Authority policy. According to their website:

*The cost of fuel is determined by a formula prescribed by the lease and these prices are monitored by the Tollway to ensure they are competitive

[Siam_Sam]

@Just_Asking_Questions

I believe you are thinking of The Glass House, in Vinita. It’s on I44, which is a tollway. I always stop there. Love my Micky-Ds while watching the traffic go by. They’ve remodeled and it has a Subway as well now. (But I take Rte 66 rather than the tollway, and you can go in through the employee’s parking lot.)

There aren’t any isolated freeway-access only business on I40.

No, I’ve never been on I-44. Maybe I-40 doesn’t have any freeway-access-only businesses now, but they did 30 or 40 years ago. I was making my usual pilgrimages to my grandmother’s house in Arkansas, which necessitated taking I-40 all the way into Arkansas at Fort Smith. I did stop at freeway-access-only MacDonald’s.