COLUMBUS, Ohio—Gov. Mike DeWine and his administration have a vision for what highway rest areas in Ohio should look like.
Lodge- or chalet-style buildings are surrounded by native grasses, well-lit parking areas and dog parks. Inside, flat-screen TVs display weather conditions, while travelers gather around kiosks with educational displays about great Ohioans like astronaut Neil Armstrong or the state’s role in the Underground Railroad. Speakers play a soundtrack of songs from famous Ohio musicians like Chrissie Hynde and Johnny Paycheck.
“Our rest areas should not just be places where people go take care of biological necessities -- they should be really places where we promote all that's good about Ohio. And that's the governor's vision,” said Ohio Department of Transportation Director Jack Marchbanks in an interview Tuesday.
DeWine, speaking Tuesday at the Ohio Contractors Association’s winter conference in Columbus, said that “I’m told that our rest areas are sorry.”
He noted that Marchbanks, a musician who hosts a weekly radio jazz show, picked the hour-long rest-area playlist himself.
“Jack has promised me we’re going to have the best rest areas in the world. Right, Jack?” DeWine said, pointing at Marchbanks from the podium.
“Yes, sir,” Marchbanks replied.
Marchbanks told cleveland.com these new efforts are a “180-degree turn” from the administration of DeWine’s predecessor, John Kasich, who proposed privatizing Ohio’s 84 rest areas and suggested selling off naming rights for each rest area to corporate sponsors.
Earlier this year, renovation work (which was launched under Kasich) was completed at three rest areas – one along Interstate 70 in Preble County in Western Ohio, and two along Interstate 71 in Warren County, northeast of Cincinnati.
There are also plans to rebuild rest-area buildings at four additional locations: along northbound Interstate 77 near Marietta, along Interstate 76 in Portage County in both directions, and along westbound Interstate 90 in Ashtabula County, according to ODOT. A working group – a favored policy tactic of DeWine – has been convened to recommend additional rest areas to refurbish.
One important detail that’s still not fully clear, however, is the cost to taxpayers for all of this work. The three completed rest-area renovations cost a combined $15 million, according to ODOT spokeswoman Erica Hawkins. But Hawkins said cost estimates for the four planned renovations are not yet available.
“It will cost more than just your plain vanilla, you know, ‘toilets in a semi-warm building’ rest area,” Marchbanks said. “But we think it's worth the investment -- the investment is something that we believe will make travel safer and more comfortable.”
Marchbanks said there are also discussions about how to solve the problem created between cars speeding up from the rest area to get back the highway and trucks parked along the entrance ramp that need more time to accelerate when leaving.
The solution to that problem, Marchbanks said, will likely require ODOT to purchase more land adjacent to rest areas, though he said no specific plans or locations have been chosen yet.
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