The Virginia agency overseeing public transportation has failed to move forward with a study aimed at determining the best way to bring mass transit to Richmond Highway, one supervisor charged on Monday.
Mount Vernon District Supervisor Gerald Hyland said the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation has stalled the fully funded study, which he wants to accompany the planned expansion of the road to six lanes.
The road widening, coupled with the addition of mass transit, are the only ways the area will stand a fighting chance of preparing for the more than 22,000 workers moving to Belvoir by 2011, Hyland said, a move mandated under federal Base Realignment and Closure orders.
Virginia transportation officials have told Hyland they have other priorities thanstudying transit on Route 1, he said. The excuse they have given is that they have other projects like HOT lanes and so on, referring to a pending High Occupancy Toll lanes project on the Capital Beltway.
“The HOT lanes are great for the people who live down in Prince William County and Stafford, but how about people in Fairfax County who are going to be affected by 22,500 people thanks to the federal government?” he asked. A spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation did not return a call for comment on Monday.
Hyland’s grievance is the latest in an expanding list of complaints with how the impending BRAC move is planned and managed. Route 1 sits directly astride the south-county Army base and is expected to be one of the highways most burdened by the shift.
Fairfax County supervisors on Monday also passed a resolution urging the Army to complete the missing leg of the Fairfax County parkway through Belvoir’s Engineer Proving Ground, a move that follows month of griping over state and federal inaction on the missing two-mile stretch of road. About 18,000 of the 22,000 workers are slated to move onto the site.
