Arlington County, VA Parking Rules: Loading Zones (2026)

3 defines a loading zone as a curbside space reserved for the exclusive use of commercial vehicles while loading or unloading passengers or materials, and defines a commercial vehicle for this purpose as one licensed as commercial or displaying company lettering of three inches or larger. Subsection B authorizes the County Manager to adopt administrative regulations establishing where loading zones may be created, with placement decided at the Manager's discretion based on an engineering and traffic investigation rather than by request. Subsection C is the operative parking limit: no one may stop or park in a marked loading zone for any purpose other than the expeditious unloading and delivery, or pick-up and loading, of materials or passengers during the hours that apply to that zone, and in no case may that stop exceed 30 minutes.

That means both the who (only vehicles actively loading or unloading) and the how long (a hard 30-minute ceiling) are enforced together; a delivery truck that has finished loading, or one that has been parked longer than half an hour, is in violation even if it is otherwise a commercial vehicle. The section, adopted by Ordinance No. 2-38 and the disabled-space and electric-vehicle-space rules that immediately follow it.