On the Road

By Kelly Hannon

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Commuter Parking at Ferry Farm Walmart Ends

Oct. 8, 2009 10:05 am

Commuters who meet their carpool or vanpool at the Walmart parking lot in Stafford's Washington Square Plaza on State Route 3 will have to find a new place to park after Friday, Oct. 16.

The Walmart is undergoing a transformation from a standard Walmart to a Walmart Supercenter, which will include a grocery store.

Walmart expects the Supercenter to attract additional customers during daytime hours Monday through Friday, and more customer parking will be needed in the shopping center at those times, said Walmart spokeswoman Ashley Hardie. Consequently, Walmart will no longer allow commuter parking after Oct. 16, she said.

A vanpool driver who alerted me to the change estimates at least 100 commuters park at the shopping center, possibly more. Many of the carpools/vanpools that park there are destined for the Dahlgren area of King George, and the Walmart lot was a convenient meeting spot en route to work.

If you have any ideas on where these carpools and vanpools can go instead, for free, drop me an e-mail at khannon@freelancestar.com.

This is the latest setback for commuter parking in the Fredericksburg area.

Due to re-development, The Town Center of Aquia (formerly Aquia Towne Center) in North Stafford also ended an informal commuter parking situation in 2008, displacing about 100 commuters. Two Virginia Department of Transportation commuter parking lots in North Stafford fill around 7, and public officials have had a hard time convincing shopping centers in the State Route 610 corridor to lease them spaces.

Other Virginia Department of Transportation lots do have space, namely the U.S. 17 lot in Stafford, and all three lots in Spotsylvania: State Route 208, Gordon Road, and the "Ukrop's" lot on Old Salem Church Road. Of course, none of these will be as convenient for the Dahlgren area workers.

The public-private High Occupancy Toll lane project on Interstate 95 between Virginia and Fluor-Transurban was supposed to bring relief soon by building at least 1,050 new spaces near Route 610, and another 300 spaces in the Massaponax area, but the HOT lanes project has been put on hold due to community concerns about traffic impacts in Northern Virginia, difficulty securing project financing, and a lawsuit filed by Arlington County.

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Kelly Hannon is the transportation reporter for The Free Lance-Star.

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Kelly Hannon writes about traffic and transportation in the Fredericksburg area.