Fort Belvoir - biggest mistake ever?

The idea to BRAC positions from all over the metro area, as well as from various other Forts, Camps, and installations throughout the mid-Atlantic to Fort Belvoir, seems like a great idea on paper, but...

~10,000 of the total 30-40,000 people to migrate to Fort Belvoir have already. The Metro system has not even begun the "day-dreaming" process of extending the Blue line to the Fort, VRE hasn't submitted any paperwork to begin the process of adding a station to the Fort, nor has Fairfax County, the US DoD, or any other agency done much of anything to expand the capacities into and out of the Fort...

Fairfax County has petitioned the Commonwealth and DoT for money and has expanded several roads to the best that they could given the limited resources that they had at their disposal; however, non of the funds came from BRAC nor are the plans on the book to give BRAC money to the projects. Thanks Bushie for bankrupting the states, counties, and blocking BRAC funding!

An interview with the Honorable Jim Moran, Represenatative from Virginia is given below which only addresses the 2011 move of Pentagon employees to the Fort. It doesn't address the closure of other installations and migration of other employees to the Fort in 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2015.

FROM WTOP:
Rep, Jim Moran, D-Va., calls the decision to move 20,000 civilian employees from buildings close to the Pentagon to Fort Belvoir in 2011 "an absolute traffic nightmare."

"It's going to be chaos," Moran tells WTOP. "I'm trying to get this across to Secretary Gates before it's too late."

Moran wrote a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, asking him to reconsider the decision laid out by the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission.

"It will generate rush hours of three to four hours longer," Moran says, who is asking for a meeting with Gates.

Moran says, "Traffic waiting to access Fort Belvoir would back up onto
I-95 and extend morning congestion between one and two hours... These effects would lead to reduced employee productivity and degradation of quality of life."

A lack of public transportation in the Fort Belvoir area would create the congestion, Moran says. The area around the Pentagon can be easily accessed by public transportation, including a Metro rail stop at the Pentagon on the Blue and Yellow Lines.

"The influx of employees being sent to Fort Belvoir threatens to greatly exacerbate an already problematic situation," Moran said in a news release. "We must directly address the transportation needs of the Fort and surrounding communities before the transfer occurs."

Moran also tells Gates that out of the $458 million the military says it needs for traffic improvements, only 8 percent has been funded so far.

(Copyright 2009 by WTOP. All rights reserved.)