Truck stop and travel center site plans

What the plan has to fit

A truck stop or travel center site carries two fueling operations and a parking lot for trucks: an auto forecourt, a diesel canopy, the truck court, a store with food service, and often scales and a truck wash, plus detention and, where there is no sewer, on-site wastewater. The truck court sets the acreage; the interchange sets where trucks can get in.

A preliminary site plan from the studio draws the whole program at real dimensions and reports it in a site data table built for this use: auto fueling positions, diesel lanes, truck spaces and spaces per diesel lane, car parking, store and food service area, scale and wash positions, detention area, driveway locations measured against the state access spacing tables, and plat reserves and pad sites. The Waller County model project on I-10 west of Houston assumes 10 to 16 auto fueling positions, 6 to 10 diesel lanes, 80 to 150 truck spaces and an 8,000 to 15,000 SF store on 15 to 30 acres.

Truck parking: the ratio that sizes the site

The truck program comes from operator practice. Truck parking and diesel lanes at recent openings, from operator announcements, trade press and directories:

In this set, 8 lanes is the most common Pilot program, an observed pattern and not a code rule. Store sizes at recent openings: Love's Holland, MI 11,000+ sf with 6 diesel bays; Love's Brighton, CO 13,500+ sf with 5 bays; Love's Reidsville, NC 12,000+ sf with 7 bays; Pilot Arlington, WA pairs 12 gasoline positions with 7 diesel lanes ^{[9, 10]}. Love's Trinidad, CO opened in 2025 with 11,100 SF, 63 car spaces and a CAT scale ^[12]. In Texas, TDLR registrations show Love's #270 Ranger rebuilt at 14,183 SF with a truck scale, tire shop and truck wash, and Love's #976 Big Spring at 14,360 SF with a truck scale, each at a $7,000,000 estimated cost ^{[13, 14]}. Other recent Love's openings: Cullman, AL with 82 spaces (late 2024) and Buffalo, WY with 64 ^[8]. The Colorado, Louisiana and Wyoming state pages carry the approval layers for three of these sites.

Demand is still growing. Love's 2026 plan commits $700M to 20 new locations, updates to 35 existing sites and 1,500 more truck spaces ^[15]. Love's opened 18 locations in 2025 and counted 670 locations in 42 states in February 2026, per CSP Daily News ^[16]. On I-10 between Brookshire and Pattison, TxDOT counts trucks at 24% of traffic against an 18% Texas interstate average, and projects truck traffic rising from 14,000 in 2023 to 30,100 in 2045 ^[5].

Along that corridor the existing stops are smaller than many new programs: Love's Weimar has 90 truck spaces and 8 diesel lanes, per a directory ^[17]; Love's Seguin lists 61 truck spaces on its operator page (an earlier opening report listed 70) ^{[18, 19]}; per directories, Sealy Truck Stop has 100 spots and 6 fuel lanes ^[20] and Flying J in Brookshire has 117 truck spaces and 10 diesel lanes ^[21]. At the top of the range, Buc-ee's Monument Hill application in Colorado was summarized by an opposition report at 74,000 SF, 120 fueling positions, 812 parking spaces, 22,150 daily trips and 260 exterior lights ^[22]. Buc-ee's openings run in the same band: Goodyear, AZ at 74,000 sf with 120 fuel pumps, as reported by Fox Business ^[23], San Marcos, TX with 128 fueling positions ^[24], and Ruston, LA with 120 pumps on a 53,000 sf campus, as reported by the USA Today Network ^[25]. The chain broke ground in 2025 in Goodyear, AZ, San Marcos, TX, Benton, AR, Murfreesboro, TN, Kansas City, KS and Ruston, LA, with an 18 to 24 month build ^[26].

How many acres a truck stop needs

Acreage is the sum of the truck court, the auto forecourt, the store, detention and the access geometry. The record gives these data points:

Drainage often decides how much of the parcel the truck court can use. In Waller County, Texas the policy is "zero net increase in storm water runoff rates," and developers "must provide compensating storage volume for all fill placed in the 1% annual chance (100-year) and 0.2% annual chance (500-year) floodplain"; structures in the 100-year floodplain are elevated 2 ft or more above the 500-year elevation ^[6]. Waller allows a master plan for phased plats, so detention can be sized for full build-out while the truck court is built in phases ^[6]. The Waller County model project carries the full county rule set.

Fueling and circulation geometry

Diesel islands carry the same fire code distances as an auto forecourt: dispensing at least 10 ft from adjoining buildable lot lines under IFC Chapter 23 as adopted in Virginia, and an emergency shutoff not less than 20 ft nor more than 100 ft from the dispensers under NFPA 30A as adopted in New Hampshire ^{[30, 31]}. Sites that take federal corridor charging funds under 23 CFR Part 680 (NEVI) need at least four networked DC fast charging ports, each able to deliver 150 kW at once, maintained for 5 years ^[32]. The gas station site plan hub sets out the full distance table.

Truck geometry is mostly left to design standards. Waller County's regulations follow "the latest version of AASHTO" for streets ^[6], and the county fire marshal requires that "All architectural plans must include a full site plan that shows all fire lane/fire access roads, fire hydrant locations, and reference the relevant codes" ^[33]. Phoenix sets a truck buffer in its C-2 district: tractor-trailer stacking and loading docks at least 60 ft from residential zoning (ZO §623) ^[34].

The studio lays out the truck court as its own circulation loop, apart from the auto forecourt: truck entry, diesel canopy, scale, parking rows and exit in one direction, with the design vehicle's swept paths confirmed by the engineer of record.

Interstate access

On an interstate site, the state access permit often decides where the driveways go. TxDOT's Access Management Manual prohibits direct access to the frontage road "in the vicinity of ramp connections," and sets minimum connection spacing on frontage roads by speed ^{[3, 35]}:

The table note reads: "Distances are for passenger cars on level grade. These distances may be adjusted for downgrades and/or significant truck traffic" ^[35].

Other access numbers that shape a travel center plan in Texas:

• Ramp clearance. At least 250 ft from the exit ramp to the downstream driveway, and at least 100 ft from an upstream driveway to an entrance ramp, where constrained ^[4]; recommended minimums of 1,750 ft urban and 925 ft rural from an exit ramp to the downstream intersection (Roadway Design Manual §15.8.1) ^[36].
• Turn lanes. A right-turn deceleration lane is warranted over 45 mph with right-turn volume over 50 vph, or at 45 mph or less with over 60 vph; an acceleration lane at right-turn egress over 200 vph (AMM Table 2-3) ^[35].
• Traffic studies. Houston District: a minor study at 50 to 150 peak-hour trips, a major study at 150 or more peak-hour or 1,500 or more daily trips ^[37].
• County roads. Waller County sets 200 ft driveway spacing on arterials without curb and gutter, may require "an internal street system that minimizes street cuts to existing County streets," and has taken up "No Thru Trucks" requests for county roads: one came before the Commissioners Court on January 12, 2022, and a later sign request was withdrawn at the April 15, 2026 meeting ^{[6, 38, 39]}.

Together, the spacing table and the ramp clearances fix where a frontage road driveway can go, so the plan is drawn from the permitted access points inward.

Approval paths

The El Paso County decision classifies the use only: the site development plan, grading, drainage, traffic improvements, utilities, signage and lighting each still need their own approval ^[41]. Where there is no zoning, the county's tools are the plat, drainage, floodplain and fire code: in Mississippi, the Forrest County board president told residents opposing a proposed Love's that the county had no legal way to stop a buyer from opening a business ^[49]. The Mississippi and Iowa state pages carry those states' approval layers; for another asset in the Texas county system, see the guide to RV park approval in Texas counties.

Where a jurisdiction does have discretion, the truck stop features are what it conditions. Boerne's Buc-ee's moved its fueling away from Menger Springs, expanded buffers and berms, committed to "Dark Sky-compliant lighting with shielded fixtures," and cannot open until its traffic impact mitigation is built ^[27]. Residents there raised traffic, light pollution, noise and property values, and asked for a new traffic study and a wall separating the site from neighborhoods ^{[47, 48]}.

Which stages take an unsealed plan. In Waller County, drainage plans are "prepared and sealed" by a Texas PE, the final plat carries a PE certification and an RPLS seal, TxDOT requires a traffic impact analysis signed and sealed by a Texas PE, and fire code architectural plans are stamped ^{[6, 33, 50]}. The preliminary plan is what those sealed documents are built on.

Tanks and wastewater

TCEQ requires notice at least 30 days before tank construction begins, and there have been no registration fees since September 1, 2007 ^[51]. Wastewater can resize the program too: an on-site sewage facility in Texas is limited to 5,000 gallons per day, and above that a TCEQ permit is needed, with applications due "at least 330 days before the proposed discharge begins" ^{[52, 53]}. A sewer connection, where one is available, keeps the schedule shorter.

What the engineer of record adds

Renderings and lighting

Waller County's regulations ask for engineering drawings, not renderings, elevations, landscape plans or photo simulations, for unzoned commercial sites ^{[6, 33]}. Lighting and scale are what neighbors contest: the Monument Hill record cited 260 exterior lights ^[22], Boerne residents raised light pollution ^[47], and Boerne's conditions require shielded, Dark Sky-compliant fixtures ^[27]. Press coverage of the $38 million Boerne project published a rendering of it ^[54]. The studio's 3D rendering service builds night and aerial views from the site plan for lenders, commissioners court variance requests and neighbor meetings.

Related pages

• The gas station and c-store hub and the car wash hub, for the auto side of a travel center.
• The Waller County model project, for the full county approval path, and the Texas gas station page for the state fuel layer.
• The state by state car wash and gas station regulations guide.
• Our post on sustainable highway stops.