North Stafford, Va. –– Speaking from a sea of parked cars Thursday morning, some of them parked illegally because of the lack of parking spaces, officials announced the expansion of one the busiest commuter lots in Stafford County.
Virginia Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton said 1,000 new parking spaces would be added the Staffordboro commuter lot, at Staffordboro Boulevard and Garrisonville Road (Va. 610).
The $5.5 million project, to be paid for with money from the state and the Fredericksburg Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, would alleviate crowding at both the Staffordboro and nearby Mine Road lots, officials say. Both lots fill up each weekday morning by 8 a.m.
“The commonwealth is very committed to making improvements on the 95 corridor…and one of the things we will be doing, and set aside specifically, is about 1.5 billion dollars to support various public/private partnerships. Very, very high on that list was the building of High Occupancy Toll lanes, HOT/HOV lanes and then extending them down to 610 here in Stafford County,” said Connaughton.
Plans for the HOT lane project call for extending two reversible lanes from Dumfries to Va. 610 in North Stafford, and then charging drivers a toll to use the lanes at all hours of the day. The existing HOV lanes from Dumfries to Edsall Road in Alexandria will be converted to toll lanes.
The land on which the commuter lot will be expanded belongs to the Stafford County Public Schools, and sits behind Moncure Elementary School.
Officials say discussions about acquiring from the school system are underway, and that construction could begin sometime next year.
“I’ve been working at this for six years and I can honestly tell you there’s been an difference in attitude, an difference in actually getting things done, and actually listening, and I think that’s important, and that VDOT has come a long way to shedding that reputation it once had,” said Stafford Board Chairman Mark Dudenhefer.
To handle the influx of new cars that will park at the newly expanded lot, construction is underway on a $3.5 million project at the intersection of Va. 610 and Staffordboro Boulevard to improve turn lanes and to separate the lanes of traffic there, added Dudenhefer.
In addition to the North Stafford commuter lot, a commuter lot on Gordon Road in Spotsylvania County will be expanded by an additional 1,000 spaces, and an additional 1,000 commuter parking spaces will be built at a planned Virginia Railway Express station also in Spotsylvania County.
In all, the Fredericksburg area expects to gain 3,000 new commuter parking spaces from the deal.
