Roads Couldn’t Handle Washington County Fair Traffic

Traffic, Illegal Parking Prompt Temporary Closing of Fair

By Cynthia Drummond for BRVCA

Officials are at a loss to explain why so many people decided to flock to the 57th annual Washington County Fair on Saturday afternoon, but whatever the reasons, the roads couldn’t handle the traffic.

Richmond Carolina Fire Chief Scott Barber attributed the high attendance to several factors.

“The weather was really good for outdoor activity,” he said. “I think the fair was well-advertised and everybody was looking for something to do, and they all showed up at once.”

Barber said the problems began on Saturday. (Attendance figures were not available at the time this story was posted.)

“Saturday was the problem day. It started to build as the problem, because all the parking lots filled up kind of at once and then the traffic became a problem, so people took it upon themselves to start parking on Route 112, on both sides, and anywhere they could find to park, even the Richmond Elementary School,” he said. “They parked all over the lawn and filled the whole lot up there, west on [Route] 138 and that amount of pedestrians on these major roadways and no lighting to account for pedestrians, there was a safety concern that somebody could be struck, and then the traffic was gridlocked in every direction and if there’s some type of emergency, we couldn’t mobilize.”

In an effort to clear the gridlock, Barber said emergency responders, organizers and fair staff, who were connected at all times by radio, agreed to stop selling tickets at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

“We were trying to figure out how to get the traffic flowing and it just became apparent that we weren’t making any headway, and I suggested ‘Look, let’s stop the ticket sales for a little bit and see if we can work this whole traffic situation out, and then we’ll reassess,’” he said. “Well, after about 2 ½ hours, it wasn’t getting any better, you know? There are people that sat in line, waiting in traffic and everything, only to find out that they had closed the gates to admission. But they had never had that amount of people show up at once and we just couldn’t overcome the congestion with all the traffic.”

The traffic didn’t clear out until about 8:30.

Town Council Vice President Richard Nassaney had his usual booth at the fair, to promote and sell his bottled sauces. Because he was already on the fairgrounds, he was unaware of the chaos on the roads, but he did notice a sharp decline in the crowd after ticket sales were halted.

“You don’t know what’s going on, so all of a sudden, you just see this big drop in people and you’re like ‘wow, there’s not a lot of people here, even though it’s absolutely beautiful here. How come?’ Then you start to hear rumors and everything else…but you can’t make any assumptions. People always jump to conclusions and most of the time, they’re making the wrong conclusion.”

There were plenty of those “wrong conclusions” on social media over the weekend, with one post even claiming, falsely, that a ride had spun out of control and collapsed.

Others said they were relieved that ticket sales had been stopped before someone was struck by a car or emergency responders were unable to get through the traffic to respond to a call.

Barbie – Jo Fratus, the fair’s Director of Communications and Marketing, dispelled erroneous social media reports that the fair had halted ticket sales because it was over capacity.

“Let me just be clear on what happened that night,” she said. “…The decision was made, not on capacity – there’s been some confusion – but the decision was made based on the volume of traffic and of patrons not parking properly outside of the fairgrounds, so, because of that high influx of traffic, and people parking in undesignated areas, the Richmond Police Department made the decision to close the fair. This was not the decision of the Washington County Fair.”

Town Council President Mark Trimmer said the roads to the fair, Routes 138 and 112, had not been designed to handle such a large volume of traffic.

“We have 2023 levels of vehicle traffic on roads that were designed in the 1940s and it’s just simply overwhelming the system when we try and force that much traffic down our rural roads,” he said. “I think the fair was a victim of its own success. We had outstanding weather on Saturday and Sunday and both days an above average amount of people went to the fair, simply because the weather was so beautiful.”

Town Administrator Karen Pinch suggested that it might be useful to explore alternative parking and shuttle arrangements.

“I think we, as a community, being the emergency management community – police, fire and the fair, need to maybe put our heads together before next year’s fair and try to find some additional off-site parking and make sure that the public is aware of it and is encouraged to make use of it,” she said.

“There was a shuttle service this year to bring people from a lot on Beaver River [Road]. The problem is, I think, people coming from [Interstate] 95 have to go by 112 to get to it, and I feel like people think that it’s the path of least resistance to come here and they realize they can’t get in, so they just park wherever they can, which, in this case, was on 112 and 138, from what I’m told.”

Barber, a veteran of countless fairs and other public events, said he had never experienced an influx of traffic like the one on Saturday evening.

“It’s like any other system,” he said. “You don’t know the breaking point, because it’s never hit that point before and they’ve never had it to this degree. We have a playbook, but all the plays got exhausted.”