Traffic chaos predicted as BRAC draws near

FORT BELVOIR, Va. - If you commute to or around Fort Belvoir, get ready for 20,000 people to join you.

As part of the Pentagon's Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, the highways, streets and backroads around the base will see a huge influx of new workers in 2011. Most will be civilian employees, moving from buildings close to the Pentagon.

Interstate-95, Route 1 and the Fairfax County Parkway around Fort Belvoir are already crawling most times of the day. Local officials are warning that congestion could get much worse.

"This is chaos that is going to occur within another year and a half," Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va) said during a meeting with leaders Wednesday.

Transportation planners, elected leaders and Fort Belvoir personnel are putting their heads together to try to figure out the proper solutions to ease the impending gridlock in the area.

A recent traffic analysis showed that because of the additional 20,000 personnel, the rush hour around Fort Belvoir could be extended an additional three to four hours.

"You can't move 20,000 people, many of whom had access to public transportation to locations that don't have sufficient access to public transportation," Moran says. "It was a decision by {former Defense Secretary} Donald Rumsfeld. I voted against it -- but it is done now, so now we have to figure out how best to deal with it."

Moran was recently able to secure $150 million in federal funding to identify and implement transportation solutions around the base. The overwhelming consensus on how to do that is to widen Route 1 near Fort Belvoir from four lanes to six lanes.

"Route 1 is the number one choke point. It is the main entrance to Fort Belvoir. It has been sitting there unimproved for decades," says Fairfax County Supervisor Jeff McKay, who represents the Lee District of the County.

"You just can't push this many people into the main post at Fort Belvoir and expect it to work without major road improvements. It doesn't work today, and if you have a broken system today, it only gets worse when you send thousands more cars in there."

The preliminary plan calls for widening Route 1 from the Fairfax County Parkway to Old Mount Vernon Highway (Route 235). That project alone is expected to cost at least $120 million

Some other potential transportation solutions talked about during Wednesday's meeting were a possible rail link from the Springfield area to Fort Belvoir and a shuttle that would run from the Lorton VRE station to Fort Belvoir.

But time is running short. One Fort Belvoir official estimates that there are 600 days until the new personnel arrive.

"This will choke Fairfax County if we don't mitigate the transportation situation," Moran says.

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