Just six months before 30,000 military and civilian defense workers are shifted to new workplaces across the Washington area, none of the necessary road or public transportation improvements needed to accommodate them have been made and local officials now fear the shift will turn already overburdened area roads into traffic graveyards. Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County, the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, and the Mark Center in Alexandria will add thousands of new commuters from the Army, Air Force and Defense Department by Sept. 15 as part of a federal realignment of military bases, moves that have been in the works since 2005.
And while local, state and federal officials have reviewed a variety of traffic improvements needed at each of the three sites, most of the new roads, traffic lanes or bus services will still not be in place when the new workers arrive, adding thousands of cars to roads already choked by rush-hour traffic.
Indeed, most of the needed improvements are unfunded and it’s unclear how long it will take to even begin work on the road projects or to put in place other measures like shuttle buses to and from Fort Belvoir’s main entrance, traffic police on Seminary Road near the Mark Center and improved pedestrian access to the Medical Center Metro station in Bethesda, according to a Transportation Research Board report.
| The cost of avoiding gridlock |
| National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda |
| $225 million to fix intersections on Rockville Pike, Connecticut Avenue and Old Georgetown Road and improve Metro access |
| Mark Center, Alexandria |
| $20 million for seven road improvements |
| $600,000 for four rehabilitated DASH buses between King Street Metro and offices |
| Fort Belvoir, Fairfax County |
| $1.9 billion in unfunded road and transit projects, including Metro extension |
| Only 4 of 30 proposed projects are fully funded. Six others are partially funded |
| SOURCE: Transportation Research Board |
“If we don’t do these things, it’s going to be a nightmare,” said Sean Massey, who is coordinating the military realignments in Maryland. “The traffic is already failing.”
The plan to shift the defense workers left residents and local officials wondering why in many cases employees will be moved from sites with easy access to public transportation — such as DOD offices in Crystal City — to isolated locations like Fort Belvoir, accessible only by local roads.
“You’ve got a guy who lives in Stafford who’s been able to ride the rails to Crystal City all these years, and now he’s got to work at Fort Belvoir, which isn’t so readily served by Metro,” said Donald Carr, public affairs director at the base. “You’re probably putting him in his car.”
Defense officials said locations like the Mark Center were chosen over other sites with better transportation access because the moves had to be made quickly. But residents across the region are laying the blame largely on local officials who they said failed to properly address the predictable problems.
“It’s kind of hard when people sit here and think of the degradation of your quality of life because of traffic,” Diane Costello, who lives off Seminary Road, told the Alexandria City Council. “No one in this room has confidence in the city because of the way they’ve mismanaged the whole situation.”
Meanwhile, local officials, frustrated that the Pentagon isn’t helping pay for the needed road improvements, said there was little they could do once the Defense Department decided to reshuffle its local work force.
“We’re faced with making the best choice among, in my opinion, all bad options,” said Alexandria Councilwoman Alicia Hughes. “But it isn’t better to do nothing.”
