Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
The State Budget Committee last week approved an Indiana Department of Transportation plan to invest $256 million in highway welcome centers, even as such roadside rest areas are disappearing in some states.
INDOT is executing a 10-year plan to improve interstate rest areas and welcome centers statewide to modernize facilities, construct new buildings, improve parking and convert some to tractor-trailer parking facilities. Plans call for a total investment of more than $600 million to 20 rest areas, welcome centers and truck-parking facilities by the end of fiscal year 2034.
The current $256 million is being used for improvements to the welcome centers at Black River in Posey County, Centerville (Wayne County), Clear Creek (Vigo County), Kankakee (Jasper County), Lebanon (Boone County) and Pigeon Creek (Steuben County). The latter, located 11 miles south of U.S. 20 on the southbound side of Interstate 69, opened in October 2020 with a price tag of $4.4 million.
The cost of Steuben County’s welcome center — which will receive a new sanitary sewer system with the new funding — was $30 million less than the ridiculous $34.8 million price tag of the Kankakee Welcome Center, under construction in northwest Indiana since 2021.
Spanning 11,304 square feet, the Jasper County welcome center will be the largest and most expensive in the state when it’s completed in September. Built around natural wetlands, it will include a large retention pond with a walkway, murals and interactive displays.
Visit Fort Wayne President and CEO Jill Boggs said welcome centers can impact first impressions, portray a welcoming spirit and create a lasting brand for Indiana, its people and communities.
“These new facilities specifically built for travelers, with a menu of amenities being offered, encourage travelers to linger and allow time for reading tourism information provided at the rest area,” she told The Journal Gazette. “Maybe they will consider returning to another part of the state in the future, or make a stop along the way to their destination.”
For more than half a century, no-frills rest stops have welcomed motorists looking for a break from the road, a bathroom or a picnic table where they can eat. But some cash-strapped transportation departments are closing old ones to save money, because they don’t attract enough traffic or are in such bad shape that renovating them is not cost-efficient.
Florida, Michigan, Ohio and South Dakota are among the states that have closed traditional rest stops over the past decade. Advocates of maintaining rest areas, however, say shuttering them is a disservice to drivers and a safety concern.
Steve McAvoy, INDOT’s statewide facilities director, said the rest-area modernization plan was spurred by a need for more overnight parking for tractor-trailer operators, where they can rest or sleep safely.
“We’re adding over 1,000 additional truck parking spaces across the state with this 10-year program. That’s the biggest push,” he told The Journal Gazette. “Plus, we’re revitalizing old, outdated rest areas with reconstruction and providing more amenities for the traveler.”
Last year, the newly renovated Pigeon Creek Welcome Center had a bit fewer than 80,000 visitors, said Steuben County Tourism Bureau Executive Director June Julien. But she hasn’t received a single inquiry from a person who stopped at the welcome center seeking more information about Pokagon State Park or other county attractions.
“On the Indiana Toll Road, we used to put our visitor guide out there and went through 40,000 of them in a year easily. It got to where we weren’t even going through a thousand of them there,” she told The Journal Gazette. “People, especially a lot of younger people, just don’t pick up flyers at rest areas; they’re looking on their phones and that’s where they’re getting their information.
“I’m not going to say it’s a bad idea to have rest areas, but I know some states are not even building them anymore.”
Perhaps the largest factor leading to rest-area closings is the 1960 federal ban on commercial services at interstate rest areas, which remains in effect. Service plazas, places on an interstate that offer an array of commercial services, are legal only on toll roads that were not developed with federal funding or were in existence prior to the ban.
To grab a bite or to fill up an empty gas tank, most motorists still must exit an interstate.
Safe and well-lit rest areas and welcome centers for the sake of convenience and safety make sense. Motorists appreciate clean restrooms and areas to stretch or walk a dog. Truckers, mandated by federal law to take breaks, frequently pull in for overnight stays.
But spending a quarter-billion dollars on just six welcome centers is excessive, particularly when lawmakers must budget for ballooning Medicaid costs and want to examine overhauling the state’s road funding formula and tax system in the next legislative session.
INDOT should stop trying to make welcome centers into travel destinations and turn its attention instead to making them brighter, cleaner and more convenient for motorists.
