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Virginia is closing 19 Interstate highway rest stops, including the two on I-66 at milemarker 48 in Manassas and the two on I-95 at milemarker 155 in Dale City.
"It would be an inconvenience," said one driver. "Otherwise you're going to end up getting stuck with traffic trying to get on and off the interstate."
It's all part of a plan to save $2.6 billion in construction, service and administrative cuts over the next six years, including laying off highway workers and allowing the grass on medians and roadsides to grow longer.
"Those transportation cuts I think are felt the most by everybody," said Matthew West, a frequent traveler from Philadelphia who was stopped at the soon-to-close rest stop in Dale City. West says this is the place his family has always stopped while passing through. "I'm almost heartbroken about it," he added.
Transportation officials say they carefully picked the rest areas to shutter because they're close to existing restaurants and hotels. That means that many of the 19 are in the less rural areas of northern Virginia. "In the southern part of Vriginia, I believe they have more of that sort of facility than they do up here," noted one driver.
The rest stops will close July 1, if the propsed budget is approved.
"That's terrible there's other things they can cut without touching something like this," said Sheryl Moodt.
"We pay enough taxes. They should keep them open," another motorist argued.
The state expects to save $9 million by closing more than a dozen rest stops. The Commonwealth expects to save $20 million by only mowing along Interstates and primary and secondary state highways just three times per growing season, and then only a few feet off the pavement, not to the edge of the state right of way.
"Who's going to want to stop at a place where the grass is up to your waist?" asked Peter Murphy.
"No, that's not feasible," argued Christy Thompson. "Because you open it up to have various creatures, individuals who stop at rest stops to get bitten by various animals, so we wouldn't want to do that."
Travelers wonder if preventing them from stretching their legs is the answer.
"And if you turn off the tourists they'll just keep going to the next state," said Carl Moodt. "Don't they realize that? That's disappointing."
Ekern said some of the closed rest areas might be reopened under commercial management provided Congress changes an existing federal prohibition against it.
"Virginia, with its strong (public-private partnership laws) I think would be well positioned to move very quickly if the law were amended," Ekern said in a 45-minute telephone conference with reporters.
Construction loses $2 billion in the cuts. The rest comes from consolidations and job cuts within the Virginia Department of Transportation and cuts to services and some maintenance not considered essential.
VDOT will also take deep cuts, reducing its classified work force by about 730 employees - to 7,500 - through layoffs and attrition by July 2010. The first round of layoffs comes next month with more layoff notices due in July and December.
Safety and motorist assistance patrols - the white vehicles that resemble police cruisers except for the amber flashing lights instead of blue ones - will be unchanged in northern Virginia, reduced in Hampton Roads and VDOT's Fredericksburg districts, and eliminated everywhere else effective July 1.
"Our recommendation is to scale our service back to about 2001 levels," Ekern said. The cutbacks will save about $6.5 million.
The popular Jamestown Ferry, which links one of the state's best-known historic sites with the Scotland community on the James River's south shore, will continue to run round-the-clock. Officials initially proposed cutting its operating hours by five to eight hours daily.
The quaint Hatton Ferry which has operated on the James River near Scottsville since the 1870s, will be eliminated. The tiny ferry that operates now only on weekends during warm weather is among the last two poled ferries in the nation, according to an Albemarle-Charlottesville Historical Society Web site. Service will be reduced to the Merry Point Ferry in Lancaster County and to the Sunnybank Ferry on the Wicomico River in Northumberland County.
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On the Web:
VDOT Proposals: http://www.virginiadot.org/newsroom/
By BOB LEWIS AP Political Writer
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