1. United States
2. Mass.
3. Letter

Reconsider the changes coming to 18 highway service plazas in Massachusetts. The Department of Transportation voted Wednesday to award a 35-year lease to an Irish company that intends to raze and rebuild nine rest stops, while significantly refurbishing nine others. Construction will start in January of 2026. Applegreen chief investment officer Ronan Ryan said Dublin-based company will invest $750 million in the plazas, which will remained owned by MassDOT. They not only were over budget and behind schedule doing the same thing in New York, what they built was horrible. I dread having to use them. Every single one reduced the number of bathroom stalls so there’s always a huge wait and the layouts are horrible. The people in line for food block movement. They also reduced the amount of tables so there’s no place to eat if there’s any large groups. You are totally out of luck if a bus shows up. Even worse you have to rely on the food in the connivence store part which isn’t great if you are traveling on a Sunday because they put chicken filet in some of them, they aren’t ever open on Sunday. Go look at the reviews, the new rest stops this company build in NY are rated terribly. Every single one of them. Why in earth do we want to copy that here? Please stop this.