Moran Requests Meeting w/ Sec. Gates on BRAC Transportation Issues

Washington, D.C., July 28th – Congressman Jim Moran, Virginia Democrat, has sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates requesting a meeting to discuss transportation issues involved with the transfer of 19,000 military and civilian personnel to Fort Belvoir pursuant to the 2005 BRAC decision.

“It’s no secret the Washington region has the second worst traffic congestion in the nation,” said Moran. “The average commuter wastes 62 hours a year sitting in traffic.  The influx of employees being sent to Fort Belvoir threatens to greatly exacerbate an already problematic situation.  We must directly address the transportation needs of the Fort and surrounding communities before the transfer occurs. I look forward to sitting down with the Secretary to discuss these issues in greater detail.”

In the letter, Congressman Moran explains the impact the BRAC decision will have on the Alexandria and Fairfax County communities surrounding Fort Belvoir:

“The Army Corps of Engineers own studies have shown that severe congestion at the Engineer Proving Ground would last three to four hours each rush hour, and that 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.” 

The increased traffic would undermine improvements stemming from completion of major recent transportation projects:

“Moreover, the negative traffic impacts of the 2005 BRAC relocations to Fort Belvoir will erode hard-fought gains in regional traffic mitigation.  Bottlenecks resulting from BRAC-induced traffic negate the benefit of the Springfield Interchange “Mixing Bowl,” the I-95 Fourth Lane project, and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge project.”

Military readiness would be impacted if employees cannot efficiently travel to and from the Fort:

“As you are aware, the planned tenant organizations to be located at Fort Belvoir are some of the most sensitive, operationally demanding, and technologically advanced activities undertaken by the Department of Defense.  Despite their important mission, if staff has to spend 3-4 hours per day in backed-up traffic, then their ability to perform their duties will be negatively impacted.”   

The Army Corps own transportation needs assessment cannot be met because the criteria for roads eligible to receive Defense Access Road funding needs reform:

The Corps’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) identified thirteen necessary transportation projects at Fort Belvoir “to maintain the transportation system’s operational performance at an acceptable level of service and delay.”  These projects include intersection improvements, road widening, and investments in public transportation infrastructure.  Unfortunately, the limited criteria used by the Defense Access Road (DAR) program severely restricts DoD or the Army from funding the vast majority of these programs.  To date, the DAR program has funded $36 million in spot traffic improvements, a mere 8 percent of the $458 million in necessary improvements identified in the FEIS.

Fort Belvoir has been very responsive, but assistance from the Secretary is needed:

While personnel at Fort Belvoir have taken significant measures to try and mitigate the coming traffic problems, the transportation infrastructure in the region is simply inadequate to accommodate the influx of 19,000 new personnel… To address these concerns, I request a meeting with yourself, or your designee, to discuss the federal solutions to this impending problem. 

*Rep. Moran has been an outspoken opponent of the arbitrary 2005 BRAC decision by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to relocate military personnel out of leased office space, most of which has located within walking distance of Metro, to military installations that lack adequate public transit access. Since the decision was finalized in 2005, he has actively fought for the needs of the affected communities and repeatedly sought to delay BRAC’s statutory deadline for completion of the transfer of 19,000 employees to Fort Belvoir by 2011. This letter is the latest in a series of actions, teaming with local, state and his colleagues in Congress, to find solutions to the issues created by the original BRAC decision.

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Letter as sent:

July 14, 2009

The Honorable Robert Gates
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Room 3E718
Washington, DC 20301

Dear Secretary Gates:

          Thank you for your continued service to our nation and to the men and women of our armed forces. 

          As you know, I have expressed serious concerns regarding the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission’s (BRAC) final recommendations. The magnitude of the realignment of military and civilian personnel throughout Northern Virginia is unprecedented, while realistic planning for how the region will deal with the influx of 19,000 new employees has been severely lacking.  With the September 15, 2011 statutory deadline drawing near, I ask that the Department of Defense and the Department of the Army reconsider some past decisions regarding the allocation of resources so that the transition is successful for both the military and the surrounding communities.

           While there are a number of challenges involving implementation of the 2005 BRAC recommendations, my primary concern is the effect the relocation of the 19,000 military and civilian personnel to Fort Belvoir will have on the communities in Alexandria and Fairfax County located in close proximity to the Fort. 

            As you must be aware, nearly 20,000 DoD personnel were relocated out of office buildings proximate to the Pentagon and Metro stations to locations without access to public transit, putting thousands more cars on our local roads.

           The August 7, 2007 Record of Decision (ROD) and subsequent Army decisions identified three separate Fort Belvoir relocation sites, the Main Post, the Engineer Proving Ground (EPG) and the Mark Center, the last of which is located in Alexandria, several miles from Fort Belvoir, but will also create extreme congestion on I-395 due to a lack of direct access from the highway.  While this bifurcation of the total number of incoming employees across these three sites should help dissipate some of the traffic impact on the region, the Army’s own investigations have reached some very troubling conclusions.

           In the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for the Fort Belvoir BRAC decisions, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers concluded that “Implementing the Preferred Alternative would result in significant adverse effects to the transportation system with respect to congestion and increased travel time. These effects would lead to reduced employee productivity and degradation of quality of life.”  According to the Corps, increased congestion would occur on Interstate 95, Route One and the Fairfax County Parkway – major access points to Fort Belvoir and all major commuter routes for employment throughout the National Capital Region.  Level of Service (LOS) at nine intersections drops to failing. Early Corps estimates stated that severe congestion at the Engineer Proving Ground would last three to four hours each rush hour, and that queuing of traffic waiting to access Fort Belvoir would back up onto I-95 and extend morning congestion between one and two hours. 

            Moreover, the negative traffic impacts of the 2005 BRAC relocations to Fort Belvoir will erode hard-fought gains in regional traffic mitigation.  Bottlenecks resulting from BRAC-induced traffic negate the benefit of the Springfield Interchange “Mixing Bowl,” the I-95 Fourth Lane project, and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge project.  
  
            Not only will anticipated traffic complications roll back gains from these transportation projects, but, without proper action, military readiness will suffer.  As you are aware, the planned tenant organizations to be located at Fort Belvoir are some of the most sensitive, operationally demanding, and technologically advanced activities undertaken by the Department of Defense.  Despite their important mission, if staff has to spend 3-4 hours per day in backed-up traffic, then their ability to perform their duties will be negatively impacted.   

           The Washington, D.C. region has the second worst traffic congestion in the nation. The average commuter wastes 62 hours each year sitting in traffic.  Unfortunately, the 2005 BRAC relocations will greatly exacerbate the problem.  The Corps’s FEIS identified thirteen necessary transportation projects at Fort Belvoir “to maintain the transportation system’s operational performance at an acceptable level of service and delay.”  These projects include intersection improvements, road widening, and investments in public transportation infrastructure.  Unfortunately, the limited criteria used by the Defense Access Road (DAR) program severely restricts DoD or the Army from funding the vast majority of these programs.  To date, the DAR program has funded $36 million in spot traffic improvements, a mere 8 percent of the $458 million in necessary improvements identified in the FEIS.

           Following its review of the projects eligible for DAR funding, the Army’s Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC) wrote to the Federal Highway Administration requesting an additional $250 million in transportation funding to complete outstanding public highway improvements surrounding Fort Belvoir.  These priorities include: 1) Fairfax County Parkway improvements between I-95 and Kingman Road and the Fairfax County Parkway/Kingman Road intersection; 2) intersections at Beulah, Telegraph, Backlick, Loisdale, and Newington Roads; and 3) widening U.S. Route One through Fort Belvoir. 

           Congress has repeatedly expressed its concern with the limitations of the DAR program.  In the report of the Fiscal Year 2009 National Defense Authorization Act (Senate Report 110-335),

Congress asserted that:

The Department of Defense (DOD) has the responsibility to determine whether proposed improvements to roads serving military installations may be eligible for financing through the Defense Access Roads (DAR) program. Section 210 of title 23, United States Code, authorizes DOD to pay a fair share of the cost of public road improvements necessary to mitigate an unusual impact of a defense activity if the Secretary of Defense determines the requirement to be important to national defense. An unusual impact includes the establishment of a new military installation, a significant increase in assigned personnel at an existing military installation, the relocation of an access gate, compensation for a closure of a public road caused by military activities, transport of heavy equipment over a public road, or a temporary surge of military activity creating intolerable congestion.

The committee is concerned that the current DAR eligibility criteria contained in the Federal-aid Policy Guide of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) do not consider the full range of transportation impacts or requirements. The committee is aware that the criteria currently do not account for safety and security concerns for local roads, even though certain DAR projects have been carried out in the past 5 years in order to correct significant deficiencies threatening the safety of military personnel.

In addition, the decisions of the 2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment process, relocations of forces from overseas, and growth in the size of the Army and Marine Corps have led to a substantial increase in the number of personnel on certain military installations over a period of just a few years. Yet the staggered nature of these basing decisions make it difficult to show that any one decision meets the strict criterion of at least doubling local traffic, or easily determine the appropriate scope of cumulative impacts. As a result, valid transportation requirements may not be considered eligible due to a strict interpretation of the “doubling” criterion, despite a significant expansion of the installation's population.

            Other language further required DoD to “review the current DAR eligibility requirements and to submit a report to Congress…(6)any recommendations for changes in the [DAR] criteria.”  Moreover, Section 2814 of the same law (Public Law 110-417) required a report detailing the transportation impacts resulting from DoD actions since January 1, 2005.  The report also requires an assessment of the funding requirements necessary to confront these impacts, which would reasonably allow the Secretary of Defense to supersede some DAR requirements to fund determined improvements. 

            While personnel at Fort Belvoir have taken significant measures to try and mitigate the coming traffic problems, the transportation infrastructure in the region is simply inadequate to accommodate the influx of 19,000 new personnel.  The BRAC-induced traffic congestion will not only affect surrounding communities, but it will negatively impact military readiness throughout the region.  To address these concerns, I request a meeting with yourself, or your designee, to discuss the federal solutions to this impending problem. 

             I appreciate your consideration of this request and look forward on hearing from you soon.

 Sincerely,

 James P. Moran

Cc: The Honorable Ike Skelton, Chairman, House Armed Services Committee
 The Honorable John Murtha, Chairman, Defense Appropriations Committee
The Honorable John McHugh, Secretary of the Army
Mr. Jerry Hansen, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army (I&E)
Supervisor Jeff McKay, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors
Supervisor Gerry Hyland, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors
Supervisor Pat Herrity, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors