Fort Belvoir’s commander on Friday said a major interchange is inadequate to funnel the glut of new traffic slated to arrive at the base in the next few years, part of an acknowledgment of the shortcomings of the I-95 corridor in light of a massive influx of military jobs.
Belvoir is now scrambling to prepare for the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission directives, which call for 22,000 new workers to shift to the facility by 2011. Under a set of recommendations released Thursday, 18,000 of the workers would be placed at the 800-acre Engineer Proving Ground.
“We’ve got to develop off ramps” near the proving ground, said Col. Brian Lauritzen, who oversees the southern Fairfax County base.
About $600 million worth of infrastructure projects have been identified for the BRAC shift — including the reconstruction of the I-95 interchange with Fairfax County Parkway, and the completion of parkway improvements through the proving ground.
But many of the major improvements are still unfunded — an increasingly pressing issue as the 2011 deadline draws nearer. Bob Chase of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance said a new sustainable funding source from the state would “go a long way toward ameliorating congestion around the [proving ground] site.”
“Unless the Virginia General Assembly acts this year, it won’t be possible to address that potential crisis,” he said.
The recommendation to focus growth at the proving ground, one of the options that will be considered in an upcoming environmental impact study, has many critics including county supervisors and local congressmen. They decried a perceived lack of regard for local input.
Rep. Jim Moran predicts the plan would create gridlock on Interstate 395. “It is not a plan that should be implemented,” said Moran. “But this is just the beginning of the process … this is their preferred alternative but it is not necessarily the final decision.”
