Additional bus service will soon be available at a largely vacant commuter parking lot in Woodbridge, an effort by Virginia transportation officials to increase use of the underused lot that’s costing them nearly $300,000. Evening shuttles will begin making three trips to the lot at First Baptist Church of Woodbridge on May 2. The buses, which will run from another commuter lot on Horner Road, will ensure that slug-line commuters can come back to their cars in the church lot at night.
The 370-space First Baptist lot, located about two miles from Interstate 95 on Minnieville Road, has been nearly empty every day since it opened more than a month ago. The lot was intended to replace commuter parking spaces lost at Potomac Mills Mall that were used for slugging, an informal car pooling practice in which drivers pick up passengers so they can use high-occupancy express lanes on the region’s highways.
But only 20 to 25 vehicles park at the church on any given day, according to the Rev. Frank Johnson, executive pastor at First Baptist. Sluggers say they’ve avoided the lot because they fear getting stranded far from their cars if they can’t catch a ride back to the church.
Prince William County opened the First Baptist lot in March to help compensate for the loss of more that 700 spaces at Potomac Mills. The mall cut back its parking in February, leaving hundreds of sluggers searching for other places to hitch a ride north to work. The Virginia Department of Transportation is paying $288,600 to lease the lot for a year.
VDOT promised to fund the lease, which ends March 2012, for up to five years. There’s still time to see if the lot will become a more popular destination for sluggers, said VDOT spokeswoman Joan Morris, but officials may reconsider renewing the lease on the church lot if use doesn’t pick up.
Prince William County also plans to build a new 600-space Telegraph Road lot by the fall of 2012, giving sluggers another option closer to the interstate than First Baptist Church.
“I can’t see them funding another year’s lease,” said Johnson. “If it’s still being underutilized to the degree it is now, it wouldn’t make sense from a fiscal standpoint to do that.”
