ARIZONA'S ROADSIDE REST AREAS

Arizona's ROADSIDE REST AREAS BY WELDON F. HEALD

Both business and pleasure take my wife and me east, west, north and south by car over Arizona's highways at all seasons of the year. We find one of the amenities of long trips these days is the ever-increasing number of developed roadside rest areas at intervals along the major routes. Usually in attractive settings, conveniently spaced, they have ramadas, or open shelters, tables, benches and grills. Many of them are also equipped with sanitary facilities. We often stop to stretch our legs, breathe the desert and mountain air, enjoy a picnic or look at the view.

A few weeks ago my wife, the dog and I paused briefly at one of them beside U. S. 80, between Benson and Tombstone. A car with Michigan license plates was parked, and a pleasant looking middle-aged couple was having an open air coffee break at a table in the shade of the ramada. We had a short chat with them before proceeding on our way, and were charmed with the peace and restful atmosphere so close to one of the State's major traffic arteries. As we left I noticed a neat sign which read: WELCOME TO YOUR ROADSIDE REST THANK YOU FOR STOPPING. ARIZONA HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT.

"I'd like to know more about these places," I said to my wife. "They should make an interesting story," she agreed. I didn't forget, and upon inquiry found that I should see Wayne O. Earley. He is Landscape Supervisor of the Roadside Development Division in the Arizona Highway Department and, as such, has complete charge of the location, planning, construction and maintenance of rest areas. I later learned that he also has a lot of other responsibilities, including highway landscaping and billboard, litter and erosion control all important and complicated matters that we motorists take for granted. I called him by phone at his Phoenix office in the new Highway Department Building and explained my interest in roadside rest areas. I had an appointment with him a few days later. The first impression I got was of a young man with tremendous enthusiasm for his job. The impression grew stronger as I talked with him. An Arizonan, born in Florence, Wayne Earley has also lived in Prescott and Tempe. He graduated from the University of Arizona in 1953, with a degree in horticulture, then was with the Maricopa County Parks Department for two years. The Roadside Development Division was created in

I learned that these delectable stopping places began to appear around the country in the early 1930's and that they were most highly developed first in Ohio. More than half the states now have them and they are provided for nation-wide in the policies and standards governing the new Federal Interstate Highway System. As Arizona is scheduled for 1,200 miles of these super divided roads, ranking 8th in the country, there, should he some 350 roadside rest areas in the state by 1975. As the Interstate Highways are financed in Arizona with 94 per cont federal funds, and primary-secondary routes are 77 per cent federal aid, the sign WELCOME TO YOUR ROADSIDE REST applios almost as much to the Michigan couple my wife and I met as it does to Ari zonans. Everybody who uses our highways has a stake in the roadside rests.

Mr. Earley took me to the division's drafting room. There I met landscape architects Mrs. Penny Abel, and Mr. Jules Trossbach, who were bent over drawing tables working working on large-scale plans of future areas. They showed me blueprints of the project which is being built on Interstate 10 at scenic Texas Canyon. To cost $95,000, it consists of twin landscaped and developed. units either side of the new divided highway. As the opposing traffic lanes of the Interstate System are sepa rated, roadside rests are built in pairs, one on each lane. However, where possible, they are not placed directly opposite each other. From both directions motorists come to the rest area on their side first, so there is is less temptation to cross the median to the other. This is a subtle but real safety factor perhaps many travelers haven't appreciated. I know I hadn't.

Besides the access roads, parking places, steps, rampa grading, picnic facilities and toilets, each plan shows details of landscaping. As a rule, an endeavor is made to disturb existing native vegetation, as little as possible.

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