Rest Stops Shut Down

Compared to laid-off teachers and looming threats to police and fire services from the state’s ongoing budget fracas, Caltrans’ decision to shut down four highway rest stops in Redwood Country hardly raised an eyebrow in Sacramento.

In Laytonville, however, where loggers still belly up for beer and steaks at Boomer’s Bar, losing the highway loos is spurring a lively debate over whether the closures will put a strain on more than travelers’ kidneys.

“Why rest stops? It’s stupid,” said Sheila Larson, 61, who moved up from San Francisco and in 1977 opened the bar, which is named for old-time tree cutter Boomer Kelton. “We’re the main stop between Santa Rosa and Eureka. People count on those rest stops.”

Larson, in turn, counts on those people to veer off U.S. 101 and, with their bodily functions taken care of, into her establishment. Without the rest stops, she fears, the road warriors will not slow down, simply plowing on to bigger cities. With more people avoiding airplanes and taking car vacations after 9/11, rest stops fulfill a more urgent need than usual, “especially for people with children,” Larson said.

Not everyone in the town of 1,100 agrees with Larson that the closures will be a disaster of leg-crossing proportions. But the tenor of community conversation shows how even seemingly inconsequential budget cuts can hit close to home.

Caltrans recently announced it was immediately closing three rest areas on the 101, the Irvine Lodge and Moss Cove stops, both a few miles south of Laytonville, and another about 20 minutes north of Laytonville near Cummings. The fourth rest stop to be closed is on California 299 in Trinity County.

Unlike many rest areas, which are maintained and kept supplied with toilet paper by state employees, these four were operated by outside contractors. Caltrans, said spokeswoman Ann Marie Jones, doesn’t have the money to keep paying them.

The three Mendocino County rest stops were maintained by the Ford Street Project of Ukiah, which used a crew of 25 mentally disabled workers to maintain the facilities as part of a job training program.

“This is poignant,” said Mark Rohloff, executive director of Ford Street Project. “The majority are homeless. Some have never been employed before.” Rohloff said his workers did a first-rate job, and locals agree.

As the budget crisis deepens, there could be more closures. Besides vacationers, some of those most affected are truckers. For them, the loss of rest stops is more than a matter of convenience. It’s about safety.

“There are not enough rest stops in California as it stands,” said Richard Leimbach, manager of safety services for the California Trucking Assn. He said truckers rely on rest stops not only for their facilities, but also to refresh themselves and to rest so they can avoid “white-line hypnosis.”

Rest stops will become even more crucial in the coming months, when a new federal regulation takes effect requiring commercial truckers to get 10 hours a day of rest from behind the wheel, rather than the current eight.

Susan Shields, advertising manager for the weekly Mendocino County Observer, is one of those who thinks the closures could actually help business. She said Larson may get customers who are unable to endure the more than 50-mile journey between remaining rest stops.

Larson said she would be glad to have them in her bar. She is getting ready to add a wing for a restaurant. It will have a brand-new restroom.