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Robert and Julia Smith were on their way from their home in Wilmington, N.C. to Pennsylvania on a vacation trip the other day when they decided they needed to make a stop.

They got off on Route 288 and headed west on Interstate 64 and pulled into the rest stop near Oilville.

“We needed to stop,” said Smith, saying no more but with his meaning clear.

When he heard the rest stop was one of 19 picked for closing in the Virginia Department of Transportation’s recently approved six-year plan, Smith was surprised.

“These stops are important,” said Smith, who said he thought North Carolina was not closing any of its rest stops on the interstate highways.

Dara Demi, spokesperson for the North Carolina Department of Transportation, confirmed that the state had no plans to close any of its 59 rest stops.

In Goochland, rest stops on both east and westbound lanes of I-64 at Oilville will close sometime next month, said Buck Godwin, director of operations for DTH Contract Services, Inc., the firm that VDOT uses to run 32 of the state’s rest stops, including the two in Goochland. All 19 of the rest stops picked for closing are operated by DTH, he said.

Evelyn Beard, 73, who has worked for DTH at the west bound Oilville rest stop for seven years, helps keep the facility looking sharp in her job as a rest area attendant. She said she thought her last day at work would be July 21.

“I’m worried for Goochland,” she said. “They’re going to miss us.”

VDOT Assistant Division Administrator for Public Affairs Britt Drewes said the exact date of the closure had not been set.

“It will be open through the July 4th weekend and closed by the end of the month,” said Drewes.

Closing the two facilities, which were opened in 1972, will save VDOT about $740,000 per year, she said.

Drewes said the nearby exits in Goochland County were a factor in the decision to close the two rest areas. She said the decision to close the rest stops was “at this point final.”

“It’s a big hit for us,” said Godwin, who said DTH has 23 people at the two rest stops who will be laid off when they close. Statewide DTH will lay off between 200 to 250 people, he said.

“It’s really bad for the traveling public,” said Godwin of the rest stop closings.

Goochland Economic Development Director Greg Reid said the closing would be like a “double edged sword” for the county.

On the one hand it would bring more business to the gas stations and stores near the Oilville and Rockville/Manakin exits, while putting more of a burden on their facilities, said Reid.

Reid noted that the board of supervisors passed a resolution urging VDOT not to close the rest areas.

District 4 supervisor Rudy Butler, whose district encompasses the rest stops, said his major concern was safety.

“People get off 95 and there won’t be a rest stop until they are past Charlottesville,” he said, citing potential driver fatigue as a danger.

Butler echoed Reid, saying that there would be increased pressure on the rest room facilities of the businesses in Oilville and Rockville, which are on septic systems.

That pressure might accelerate the progress toward bringing water and sewer to the Oilville area, a process already started by the board of supervisors. But that would take at least two years before completion, even if there are no snags, he estimated.

“It’s a great time to go ahead with the sewer plan for Oilville and get it done,” said Butler.

“In the long run business wise we’ll pick up some business,” said Butler of the effect of the rest stop closings.

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