There isn't cause for accusing the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission with making a mistake when it awarded a 30-year, $100 million contract to HMSHost to construct, operate and maintain Turnpike plaza restaurants and convenience stores.

However, the commission merits criticism for shortsightedness over the location of welcome centers, specifically the one that greets visitors when they arrive in the Keystone State from Ohio.

HMSHost plans to close the welcome center at the Zelienople Serv-ice Plaza at mile marker 21.7 on the toll road as part of the shutdown of the service plaza. The replacement for the Zelienople Plaza welcome center will be one at the renovated Oakmont plaza, 21 miles east of the Cranberry interchange.

Butler County tourism officials are justifiably unhappy about the welcome center decision — a decision that merits a quick rethinking prior to the Zelienople plaza's scheduled closing on Nov. 15. The unhappy tourism officials, including Jack Cohen, executive director of the Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau, are correct that moving the welcome center will adversely impact this county's tourism efforts.

It's unlikely that, after travelers have driven 21 miles past the Cranberry interchange, they'll be inclined to turn around.

Indeed, a welcome center ought to be situated as close to a state's border as possible, in order to make tourist information available quickly. That isn't the thinking that is guiding HMSHost in opting for an Oakmont welcome center.

While a service plaza just across the border in Ohio apparently is the culprit hurting sales at the Zelienople area service facility, explaining the reasonable business decision to close the Pennsylvania facility, that should not be the basis for not keeping a welcome center open at that location.

For example, the decision will deprive tourists of information about the extensive menu of hotel rooms in Cranberry Township, as well as what else is available along Interstate 79 north and south.

That the Zelienople plaza was remodeled in December 2005 should be a basis for justifying continuance of the welcome center at that location, even if HMSHost sees justification for a welcome-type facility at Oakmont as part of Oakmont's golfing attraction.

Joe Agnello, the Turnpike spokesman who confirmed that HMSHost had made the welcome center decision, said, "This is part of the strategic plan for our service plazas over the long term, where we are rebuilding most of them but, unfortunately, closing others."

However, amid the local unhappiness rests the question of why the closing was made known to Butler County tourism officials so close to the actual planned closing date. The Butler County tourism bureau was notified of the closing in a letter from the Turpike Commission dated Oct. 13, leaving not much time to mount a campaign of opposition.

The timing of that letter can be regarded as unfair.

An article in the Oct. 30 Butler Eagle indicated that all county tourism bureau members were being asked to send the Turnpike Commission letters opposing the move. That is a reasonable reaction.

But that doesn't preclude other county residents from joining the opposition. People should get in touch with the tourism bureau to find out how they, too, can express their displeasure with the plan.

The decision by HMSHost is wrong from much of Western Pennsylvania's standpoint, not only Butler County's.