Editing Motel (section)

===Decline===
[[File:Grand West Courts, Chicago.jpg|thumb|Abandoned Grand West Courts in Chicago, demolished in September 2013]]
In many once-prime locations, independent motels which thrived in the 1950s and 1960s were being squeezed out by the 1980s as they were forced to compete with growing chains with a much larger number of rooms at each property. Many were left stranded on former two-lane main highways which had been bypassed by motorways or declined as original owners retired and subsequent proprietors neglected the maintenance of buildings and rooms. As these were low-end properties even in their heyday, most are now showing their age.

In Canada, the pattern was most visible in the densely populated [[Windsor-Quebec Corridor]], particularly the urban locations like [[Hotels in Toronto#Motel era|Toronto's Kingston Road motel strip]] once bypassed by the completed [[Ontario Highway 401|Highway 401]], and the section of [[Ontario Highway 7|Highway 7]] between Modeland Road and Airport Road known as the "Golden Mile" for its plethora of motels and restaurants (as well as points of interest such as the [[Sarnia Airport]] and Hiawatha Racetrack and Waterpark) which was bypassed by [[Ontario Highway 402|Highway 402]].<ref name="sarnia.ca">http://www.sarnia.ca/documents.asp?DocumentID=74 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150630010247/http://www.sarnia.ca/documents.asp?DocumentID=74 |date=June 30, 2015 }} p. 7</ref> The decline of motels was also found at awkward rural locations formerly on the main road. Many remote stretches of the [[Trans-Canada Highway]] remain unbypassed by motorway and some independent motels survive.

In the U.S., the [[Interstate Highway System]] was bypassing [[U.S. Highway]]s nationwide. The best-known example was the complete removal of Route 66 from the U.S. highway system in 1985 after it was bypassed (mostly by [[Interstate 40]]). U.S.&nbsp;66 was particularly problematic as the old route number was often moved to the new road as soon as the bypasses were constructed, while [[Highway Beautification Act]] restrictions left existing properties with no means to obtain signage on the newly constructed Interstate. Some motels were demolished, converted to private residences, or used as storage space while others have been left to slowly fall apart.<ref>{{cite news |author=Justin Juozapavicius |title=Route 66 motels endangered |url=http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/travel/hotels/2007-05-19-route66_N.htm |newspaper=[[USA Today]] |date=May 19, 2007 }}</ref>

In many towns, maintenance and renovation of existing properties would stop as soon as word was out that an existing highway was the target of a proposed bypass; this decline would only accelerate after the new road opened. Attempts by owners to compete for the few remaining clients on a bypassed road by lowering prices typically only worsened the decline by leaving no funds to invest in improving or properly maintaining the property; accepting clients who would have been formerly turned away also led to crime problems in cities.

By 1976 the term "cockroach motel" was well-established; a slogan for [[Black Flag (insecticide)|Black Flag]]'s trademark "[[Roach Motel (insect trap)|Roach Motel]]" bug traps would be paraphrased as "they check in, but they don't check out" to refer to these declining properties.<ref group="Note">[[Nancy White (singer-songwriter)|Nancy White]]'s 1993 "Senator Lawson at the Motel Cucaracha" (03:45) adopts this modified tag line as part of the song's chorus</ref>

[[Image:Abandoned motel room - 3206 Ontario Highway 2 - Pittsburgh Township.jpg|thumb|left|An abandoned room]]
In declining urban areas (like [[Kingston Road (Toronto)|Kingston Road]] in [[Toronto]], or some of the districts along [[Van Buren Street (Arizona)|Van Buren Street]] in [[Phoenix, Arizona|Phoenix]], largely bypassed as a through route to California by [[Interstate 10 in Arizona|Interstate 10]]), the remaining low-end motels from the two-lane highway era are often seen as seedy places for the homeless, prostitution, and drugs<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/home-and-garden/real-estate/article1282406.ece| title=It's check-out time for Scarborough's storied motel strip | author=Dave LeBlanc | newspaper=[[The Globe and Mail]] | date=September 10, 2009}}</ref> as vacant rooms in now-bypassed areas are often rented (and in some cases acquired outright) by social-service agencies to house refugees, abuse victims, and families awaiting [[social housing]]. Conversely, some areas which were merely roadside suburbs in the 1950s are now valuable urban land on which original structures are being removed through [[gentrification]] and the land used for other purposes. Toronto's [[Lake Shore Boulevard]] strip in [[Etobicoke]] was bulldozed to make way for [[Condominium (living space)|condominium]]s.

In some cases, historic properties have been allowed to slowly decay. The Motel Inn of San Luis Obispo, which (as the Milestone Motor Hotel) was the first to use the "motel" name, sits incomplete with what is still standing left boarded up and fenced off at the side of [[U.S. Route 101]]; a 2002 restoration proposal<ref>{{cite web | title=Motel Inn restoration proposal (2002, never implemented) | year=2002 | publisher=King Ventures (Apple Farm Inn) | url=http://www.kingventures.net/applfrm_motinn/restore_rehab.htm | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305002516/http://www.kingventures.net/applfrm_motinn/restore_rehab.htm | archive-date=March 5, 2016 }}</ref> never came to fruition.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2006/08/15/worlds-first-motel-a-sight-worth-saving/ | title=World's first motel a sight worth saving | publisher=[[Chicago Tribune]] | date=August 15, 2006 | author=Eric Zorn }}</ref>

[[Alamo Plaza Hotel Courts]], the first motel chain, was sold off in pieces as the original owners retired. Most of its former locations on the U.S. highway system have declined beyond repair or were demolished. One 1941 property on [[U.S. Route 190]] in [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana|Baton Rouge]] remains open with its Alamo Plaza Restaurant now gone, its pool filled in, its original color scheme painted over, its front desk behind bulletproof glass, and its rooms infested with roaches and other vermin. A magnet for criminal activity, police are summoned daily.<ref>{{cite news | title=After dark, it gets ugly | author=Chuck Hustmyre | date=October 25, 2007 | work=225 Baton Rouge | url=http://www.225batonrouge.com/news/2007/oct/25/after-dark-it-gets-ugly | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120501070538/http://www.225batonrouge.com/news/2007/oct/25/after-dark-it-gets-ugly/ | archive-date=May 1, 2012 }}</ref> Other Alamo sites in [[Chattanooga, Tennessee|Chattanooga]],<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.chattanoogan.com/2010/8/17/182093/Remembering-the-Alamo-Plaza-Hotel-and.aspx | title=Memories: Remembering the Alamo Plaza Hotel and Courts | date=August 17, 2010 | author=Harmon Jolley | newspaper=The Chattanoogan}}</ref> [[Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis]],<ref>{{cite journal | title=Remembering the Alamo — Plaza, That Is | author=Vance Lauderdale | journal=Memphis Magazine | date=December 1, 2008 | url=http://www.memphisflyer.com/AskVanceBlog/archives/2008/12/01/remembering-the-alamo-plaza-that-is }}</ref> and [[Dallas]]<ref>{{cite news | title=Alamo Plaza, an Oak Cliff landmark, falls to wrecking ball today | author=Tom Benning | newspaper=[[The Dallas Morning News]] | date=December 14, 2010 | url=http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/dallas/headlines/20101214-alamo-plaza-an-oak-cliff-landmark-falls-to-wrecking-ball-today.ece }}</ref> have simply been demolished.

The American Hotel and Motel Association removed 'motel' from its name in 2000, becoming the [[American Hotel and Lodging Association]]. The association felt that the term 'lodging' more accurately reflects the large variety of different style hotels, including luxury and boutique hotels, suites, inns, budget, and extended stay hotels.