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NOKESVILLE, Va. — On a summer Friday afternoon in the country, traveling on Aden Road in Nokesville is anything but easy.
A line of cars quickly stacked up during the afternoon rush hour from a two-lane bridge crossing Cedar Run to a four-way stop at Fleetwood Drive, home to a small country store. To travel that 1.5-mile stretch of road, it took about 45 minutes on the afternoon of August 15.
There were no wrecks or downed trees in the road – it was just the sheer number of vehicles gumming up the works, each coming to a complete stop (like they’re supposed to do) and navigating a the four-way intersection outside the country store.
Seizing an opportunity created by this traffic jam, the store has now set up an outdoor barbecue each Friday afternoon starting at 2 o’clock. Drivers pack the gravel parking lot outside the general store to buy chicken dinners for $8, pulled pork dinners for $6, and pulled pork sandwiches for $5 each.
“Most drivers say ‘this is ridiculous,’ and they tell me they’ll sit in traffic for maybe a half an hour and not really go that far, and most of them aren’t really going that far,” said Christina Thompson, of Nokesville, whose worked at the country store for two years and has watched traffic conditions outside her store grow worse. “Some of my locals say ‘I can’t get out of my driveway’ so I tell them to take it easy, treat this place like a city, and back out slowly.”
While the traffic is good for business – pulled pork and chicken were flying off the grill and selling like hotcakes on Friday – the increased traffic volume on roads that clearly weren’t designed to mange such volume is taking its toll. Thompson says many of the drivers who use these roads are avoiding traffic congestion and construction work on Interstate 95, cutting through Nokesville and headed to their homes in Fredericksburg.
Those who live in Nokesville do so because they like the rural character of the area, said Thompson, who added that she used to live in Manassas but moved here to “get away from the city.”
A fatal motorcycle crash remains fresh on her mind after a man was killed earlier this month at the four-way intersection in front of her shop. He was struck and then run over by a truck at the busy intersection.
“That was pretty awful. I was working during that time and I heard it happen, I called 911, it was terrifying. I’ve seen plenty of bikes go down before because I used to work at Old Dominion Speedway, but I’ve never seen anyone get killed on one.”
Thompson hopes officials will place a stop light, or at least rumble strips on the pavement near the four-way intersection, as a way to tell drivers to slow down. The day after the fatal crash drivers seemed to slow down and take it easy at the four-way, but traffic was back to its usual hectic pace the following day, said Thompson.
