RESOLUTION 2009-08
Regarding Maintaining Highway Rest Area Vending Facilities
WHEREAS, Barbara Kennelly, a congresswoman from Connecticut, included an amendment in the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 permitting states to allow the operation of vending machines at rest areas on interstate highways by and for the benefit of blind vendors under the Randolph-Sheppard vending facility program; and
WHEREAS, during the more than twenty-five years since the Kennelly Amendment, highway rest area vending has been a key growth area under the Randolph-Sheppard Act, creating entrepreneurial opportunities for some 530 blind men and women, which is approximately 20 percent of the total number of opportunities presently available; and
WHEREAS, these rest areas, not only provide a respectable income for the blind managers, but also provide substantial support to state Business Enterprise Programs from set-aside funds and from unassigned machine income; and
WHEREAS, when Congress amended the Surface Transportation Law in 2005, it reduced opportunities for blind entrepreneurs in the Randolph-Sheppard Program by creating the Interstate Oasis Program, which allowed states to designate commercial facilities near interstate highways as Oasis if they met guidelines including offering food, access to phones, and parking for over-the-road trucks; and
WHEREAS, blind entrepreneurs are disadvantaged because they are unable to participate in the Oasis Program and because they lose income if they manage a location in close proximity to an Oasis area; and
WHEREAS, in these difficult economic times states will be tempted to displace blind vendors from their rest areas in order to capture additional revenue for themselves; and
WHEREAS, the one hundred eleventh Congress is beginning the process of reauthorizing surface transportation legislation because provisions in the last bill are due to expire: Now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention assembled this seventh day of July, 2009, in the city of Detroit, Michigan, that this organization call upon Congress to make no changes that would in any way diminish opportunities blind vendors have to manage vending machines on the interstate highway system; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that, if Congress believes there is a benefit to greater commercialization of rest areas and of areas in close proximity to the interstate highway system, this organization call upon Congress to facilitate partnering between blind vendors and state licensing agencies with other business entities for the purpose of enhancing the prosperity of blind vendors operating on the interstate highway system.
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