Despite $2M grant, gaping need for road fixes remains

The Department of Defense has awarded Virginia $1.9 million to study how to shore up interchanges on the Fairfax County Parkway ahead of a large-scale military job influx at Fort Belvoir, the Virginia Department of Transportation announced Friday.

The funds, however, represent less than a half of a percent of the about $450 million that Virginia and Army officials say will be necessary to prepare the area’s road network for the 19,000 new workers to the south-county base by 2011. The federally mandated job shift is part of a nationwide shift of military facilities called Base Realignment and Closure, or BRAC.