Best Practices for Local Reviews of Industrial Developments

About the report

Undesignated truck parking is one of the consequences of the growth in industrial freight activity. Truck drivers frequently park on roadway shoulders, off‑ramps, vacant lots, and local streets near industrial and commercial facilities because truck stops are full, onsite staging is prohibited, and long delays at the facilities consume available hours‑of‑service time. Although Virginia legislation has encouraged jurisdictions to identify freight corridors in their comprehensive plans, knowledge of proactive policies for industrial developments is limited at the local level. The purpose of this research was to develop guidance for local reviews of industrial developments that will enable localities to support VTrans’ goals in the areas of industrial land use, truck parking, and freight mobility. Specific objectives were to (1) evaluate the level of detail in Virginia practices compared with best practices with respect to accommodating truck parking needs, (2) assess how these practices influence undesignated parking, and (3) identify locations where the greatest amount of undesignated truck parking occurs. The scope of the project entailed reviewing best practices in other states and reviewing policy and data at the local level as they relate to land use, truck parking, and freight mobility.

The following conclusions were drawn from the research findings: (1) best practices with respect to local reviews of industrial developments include a detailed review process with expectations for the traffic impacts, parking, routing, and amenities and a set of supporting local ordinances for each of these areas; (2) the expansion of e-commerce-driven industrial developments and distribution centers has amplified the need for localities to update zoning ordinances; (3) the Virginia review of ordinances indicates that localities exhibit uneven treatment of freight‑related land use ordinances; (4) the moderate correlation of locality ordinance quality in Virginia and industrial site presence suggests that more industrialized localities are more likely to adopt detailed freight provisions in their zoning ordinances; (5) insufficient onsite parking at industrial facilities leads directly to undesignated parking on shoulders, ramps, and local streets, creating safety hazards and infrastructure damage; (6) undesignated parking in Virginia is not uniformly distributed and clusters around three roadway contexts—industrial queue, interchanges, and rest areas; and (7) the priority scoring cluster analysis adapted for Virginia use identifies interchange locations as the highest need based on the components of safety and undesignated parking instances and durations.

Guidance was developed based on findings from the research tasks, with a focus on ordinance language that the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) can share with localities. States identified in the literature review were the source of the initial template. Then, based on the review of Virginia ordinances and the parking analysis along major freight corridors, suggested language was provided across four key areas: applicant narrative, truck routing, parking (on and off site, with explicit consideration of staging), and amenities. The research recommends that VDOT’s Transportation Mobility Planning Division (1) create a task group to review the guidance in the Appendix of this report, revise where appropriate, and share with localities as recommended ordinance amendment language and (2) apply the method provided in this report of using truck parking clusters to prioritize truck parking needs.

Supplemental materials can be found at https://library.vdot.virginia.gov/vtrc/supplements.

_{Disclaimer Statement:The contents of this report reflect the views of the author(s), who is responsible for the facts and the accuracy of the data presented herein. The contents do not necessarily reflect the official views or policies of the Virginia Department of Transportation, the Commonwealth Transportation Board, or the Federal Highway Administration. This report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation. Any inclusion of manufacturer names, trade names, or trademarks is for identification purposes only and is not to be considered an endorsement.}

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