The administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is planning to close the two I-84 rest areas in Willington permanently on July 1, as a first step toward the permanent closing by mid-2013 of all seven of the state's noncommercial rest areas on interstate highways.
The DOT's brief announcement of the move this week drew a sharp protest Friday from Michael Riley, president of the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut - who said that the benefit of the free rest areas to the public and truckers is so great that it far outweighs what he considered the meager savings that the state would realize from the closings.
The savings in staff and maintenance costs are predicted at $400,000 a year for closing the two Willington areas, the DOT said in a brief June 1 press release. Another $900,000 in annual savings would be realized by the subsequent closing of all five other non-commercial state rest areas on I-84, I-91 and I-95 -- for an overall total of $1.3 million a year in savings out of the state's annual budget of $20 billion.
"The state is in a serious budget crisis and some tough decisions had to be made," Judd Everhart, the Department of Transportation's spokesman, said Friday night on behalf of both the DOT and the Malloy administration.
But Riley said that the rest areas are indispensable, because they are "where truck drivers stop to get the rest they're required by law to have." Truck drivers can work during 14 hours of the day at most, and can only drive for 11 of those, Riley said. By law they need to rest for the other 10 hours, he said.