Rest area amendment fails on Capitol Hill

Rep. Frank R. Wolf tried Friday to save 19 Virginia rest areas from closing, but his "good faith effort" stalled in a House committee.

Now, the issue that Wolf sees as not so much one of convenience but of safety is back to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, the Republican said.

"The ball's back with the state now," said Wolf, who represents Prince William County, Manassas and Manassas Park. "We've made a good faith effort."

Wolf tried to amend a transportation funding bill to allow businesses to operate at rest areas, which is now prohibited under federal law. The effort failed, 26 to 32.

The thinking was that having commercial activity at rest areas -- like that that was grandfathered at rest stops in other states when the federal prohibition took effect -- would allow some of the highway outposts to remain open.

Nineteen of Virginia's 42 rest areas -- including those on Interstate 95 in Dale City and on Interstate 66 in Manassas -- are slated to close in an effort to save $9 million toward a $2.6 billion road budget shortfall.

All but the westbound I-66 rest area, a state "welcome center," would be shuttered Tuesday. It would close in September.

Kaine's administration has long supported commercializing rest areas in the Old Dominion. The Commonwealth Transportation Board voted in March to support the idea, and Virginia Secretary of Transportation Pierce R. Homer and the governor himself wrote letters in support of changing federal law.

Prince William's Board of County Supervisors and Del. Robert G. "Bob" Marshall, a western Prince William Republican, also asked lawmakers in Washington for help.

With his amendment voted down, Wolf renewed a call to Kaine to keep the 19 targeted rest stops open, even without help from private business.

"As you and I discussed last Friday, I am strongly opposed to the decision to close rest stops in the state," Wolf wrote in a letter to Kaine on Friday. "It is a terrible idea. We are putting hundreds of thou-sands of motorists at risk."

Rest areas often are thought of in terms of bathroom facilities. But Wolf said he's most worried about them as places where weary drivers can find a respite.

With rest stops closed, he said, a sleepy tractor-trailer driver may have to travel a longer distance to find a place to take a break.

That could cause a terrible accident if the driver lost control of his rig.

"When you're in an accident with a truck, generally somebody gets killed," Wolf said in a telephone interview from the House floor.

Kaine spokesman Gordon Hickey said that Friday's vote was a disappointment but that the governor will look for other legislative solutions.

And even if Wolf's amendment had passed, he noted, it wouldn't have prevented the Tuesday closures.

"It was one step in a long legislative process," Hickey said.

And, he said, the real problem is that the Republican-led House of Delegates has refused to work with Kaine and the state Senate to properly fund transportation needs.

"This is clearly a consequence of that position," he said.

Staff writer Jonathan Hunley can be reached at 703-369-5738.