I-5 Rest Stop Shouldn’t Be Closed

Re closing the Aliso Creek rest stop on I-5: With family and friends in L.A., Orange and San Diego counties, my wife and I do a lot of traveling up and down I-5. We also frequently use the Aliso Creek rest stop.

How important it has been to be able to pull in at various hours of the day, night or very early morning to stretch one’s legs and refresh, to get a cup of hot coffee from one of the charitable vendors, to look upon the vast variety of other persons also using the rest stop.

How unfortunate that one elected official, Assemblyman Robert C. Frazee (R-Carlsbad) and other miscellaneous bureaucrats are now lining up to take away this valuable public asset.

And look at the some of the petty infractions laid out as reasons to close the stop. Illegal food vending? Give me a break. Or, how about vehicle infractions? Would these not be infractions if the people were forced to continue driving?

And as to the rest stop being a staging area for illegals who wait for the Immigration and Naturalization Service to stop checking vehicles at the border checkpoint, well, soon we will have a 24-hour checkpoint, and so this reason won’t fly either.

No, more and more my wife and I believe that this is a manufactured crisis intended to channel some of the 10,000 vehicles a day that use the rest stop to the food and rest businesses within and around the area.

We believe this because my wife and I have never been threatened, nor felt threatened, at the Aliso Creek rest stop. However, the threat to public safety, with possible subsequent lawsuits, would be very real if this stop were ever closed down.

Rest areas are relatively inexpensive to maintain. They provide a valuable service. The one at Aliso Creek is the busiest in the state. If anything, it should be expanded. It certainly should not be closed down.

PATRICK and LEIGH ANN FLYNN

Pacific Beach