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The hunt for commuter parking funds is on, again, in North Stafford
By KELLY HANNON The region is looking at new ways to expand commuter parking in North Stafford, after piles of snow last week caused overflow conditions that led some drivers to leave vehicles at a shopping center, where their vehicles were towed. Last night, an agenda item for the Fredericksburg Area Metropolitan Planning Organization meeting summed up the mood: "Route 610 Parking Crisis." "It's a high level of frustration in the area where I live," said Stafford supervisor Mark Dudenhefer. While some communities have to entice residents to leave their cars behind, Stafford has been overly successful at attracting carpoolers and transit riders. Two Virginia Department of Transportation parking lots with a combined 1,758 spaces near Garrisonville Road are 130 percent full every day of the week, meaning all legal spaces are taken, and many drivers create illegal spaces on the lot's margins. One of the lots, on Staffordboro Boulevard, has 1,008 spaces. A local ridesharing program, GW RideConnect, counted all the known buses, carpools and vanpools that meet at the lot, and came up with a number of required spaces: 1,008. "That does not include the massive slug line that operates out of that lot every day," said Diana Utz, GWRideConnect director. Parking spaces exist at a few commuter lots elsewhere in the Fredericksburg region, but people flock to the North Stafford lots because a unique form of commuting--slugging--is robust there. "Slugs" are commuters who line up to form instant carpools of three people to work destinations, making the vehicles eligible to use High Occupancy Vehicle lanes. Many commuters park at the North Stafford lots because their chances of getting a ride--or finding slugs--is greatest there. Construction of High Occupancy Toll lanes on Interstate 95/395 was supposed to provide funds to build at least 1,050 new commuter parking spaces on Garrisonville Road through a public-private deal with Virginia. But the project is on hold, and so is the funding. Last night, FAMPO board members saw a consultant's report on where space is available.
This is what I had handy for Stafford per rider subsidy FY07 was $64.14 and in FY08 $152.31 and FY09 $174.77. IN FY09 VRE got $2,656,576; Fred Bus got $628,711 and Roads $726,327 from the gas tax revenue. The 2010 Transportaion Fund info is in budget at pages 251-259 http://www.co.stafford.va.us/budget/2010_Adopted_Budget/asset_upload_file89_13869.pdf
2000 space lot and charge $1 a day to park there, that'd be $2000 a day, I wonder how long it'd take to pay off the land and the paving and start turning a profit.....
A blue ribbon committee will study the problem at a cost of
several million dollars for the next decade. Then they will
discover that the dodo bird is NOT extinct and the last
breeding pair's habitat is right there in the location of the
new proposed parking lot. A new blue ribbon committee will
then be formed to point fingers at the incompetence of the
previous committee. The first committee will then form the
new grassroots "Rubber and Glue" party. That's when
things will REALLY start getting ugly.
expand commuter lots and/or provide FRED bus service as
per the excellent suggestion.
We are a commuter-centric region.. It's beyond me why
VRE gets priority treatment when the van/bus/car pool have
the best potential to expand and locate more flexibly
I wonder if the folks in Stafford even know what the excess
2% gas tax revenues are actually used for.
If North Stafford had a bus service that residents did not have to walk several miles to catch, more people would be able to take the bus to the lots--leaving their cars at home. My husband does slug from one of the lots, however, he depends on me to drop him off and pick him up each day--there is simply no place to park.
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