You know them for the free coffee. But rest areas also are a good barometer of an improving economy.
Visits to safety rest areas increased statewide by 8.2 percent, to an estimated 22.5 million visits in 2014, according to a Washington State Department of Transportation report. The rest areas are heavily used by truckers.
The increase is a bit soupy. Visitor estimates are generally based on water use. Averaged out over three years, about 21.5 million visitors use rest areas annually.
The state has 48 rest stops. Three are in Snohomish County, all on I-5.
More than 805,000 visitors stopped at the I-5 Smokey Point northbound rest area in 2014, a leap of 37 percent over 2013. Its southbound counterpart saw over 817,000 visitors, up 18 percent.
A sewer renovation project at the sites, budgeted at $110,000 for the construction phase, is delayed.
More than 530,000 visitors stopped at the I-5 Silver Lake southbound rest area in 2014, down 9 percent from 2013. A $428,500 project to rehab an RV dump station and a minor storage building project there have both been deferred.
WSDOT’s backlog of preservation and maintenance projects at the aging rest areas continues to grow, now at $24.4 million.
The highest-use rest area in the state is at Maytown, south of Olympia on I-5. The least-used is Traveler’s Rest off Highway 906 at the Snoqualmie Pass summit.
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