I would not expect the biggest truck stop in the United States to be in the Chicago suburbs. But it will soon open:

Outpost, an Austin, Texas-based company, is transforming 30 acres at 70 Airport Road into a location where 1,000 semi trucks can park in a safe, secure setting, said Trent Cameron, the company’s co-founder and CEO…

When it opens Oct. 1, the number of parking spaces will exceed the 900 available at the Iowa 80 Truckstop in Walcott, Iowa, which bills itself as the world’s largest truck stop, in part because of the restaurants, stores, truck dealership, movie theater, repair shop and other service businesses spread out over its 220 acres, according to its website.

As Cameron noted, there’s a need for more truck parking. A report done by the American Trucking Association found there is one parking space for every 11 trucks on the road and many drivers spend nearly an hour every day trying to find a place where they can stop, resulting in about 12% lost pay annually.

Beyond that, truck drivers waste a lot of fuel searching for parking and often are forced to park in unsafe and unauthorized locations, the association report said.

Suburbs are not often home to truck stops as these tend to be located further outside of big cities. Developers may see land as more profitable for other uses. Companies may want cheaper land and more of it. As noted later in the article, suburban residents often do not like lots of trucks on local streets and as neighbors.

However, local and long-term trucking is essential to everyday life. Suburbanites may not like trucks on their roads but they would not like it if their local grocery store or big box store did not have what they want. For people to receive their deliveries from Internet orders, the goods have to get to warehouses first and then have to make it to their addresses.

Additionally, Chicago is an important trucking and transportation hub, serving both the large metropolitan area and a lot of traffic passing through to other places. Many trucks make their way into and out of the region with many warehouses, retail facilities, and communities.

Will large suburban truck stops become more and more common? Will this push residents and communities to make certain choices about land and locations?