Bill Kuttner • April 27, 2026 • 4 minute read

On March 4 of this year Shravanthi Gopalan Narayanan and I attended a virtual public meeting of the National Coalition on Truck Parking, a planning effort led by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) undertaken as a provision in the 2012 MAP-21 multi-year federal transportation authorization. At this meeting FHWA officials indicated their intent to present to Congress a list of benefits that would be realized by repealing the 1960 statutory prohibition of commercial activity at rest areas on U.S. Interstate Highways that were built using federal funds. Highways such as the I-90 Massachusetts Turnpike are exempt from the prohibition if they were built without federal funds.

Repeal of the commercial activity prohibition was one of several recommendations of a 2016 CTPS study (Rest Locations for Long-Distance Truck Drivers in Massachusetts) that explored the problem of improving the rest location system in Massachusetts. The reasoning was simple. Most interstate highway rest areas do not have restrooms. If restrooms are added they must be maintained. Restroom maintenance is a normal operating cost of commercial activity. That is why the service plazas on I-90 have restrooms while the rest area on I-495 in Chelmsford has only some port-o-potties serviced periodically by MassDOT.

The CTPS study addressed a wide range of issues. This recommendation, however, generated active opposition from the commercial truck stop trade association. Also, at earlier Coalition public meetings FHWA had repeatedly ruled out making any effort to get the prohibition loosened. At the recent Coalition meeting the truck stop association also criticized FHWA officials. FHWA responded that repeal was up to Congress but FHWA intended to present the benefits. FHWA certainly did not need the 2016 CTPS study to inform its new policy, but the CTPS study shows how a change in federal policy could meaningfully improve the region’s rest location system.