Pentagon IG slams Army decision to move workers to Alexandria’s Mark Center

The Army’s decision to move 6,400 defense workers to an Alexandria office complex this year was based on a deeply flawed portrayal of the impact it would have on traffic, according to a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general that is expected out this week.

The Army used bad traffic data to make its case for the transfers and failed to comply with state and federal standards in its proposals to minimize traffic congestion, the inspector general’s report said.

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Army’s Mark Center

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The mass relocation of defense workers to a new building alongside a major freeway in the heart of the nation’s most congested region, a building without immediate access to the Metrorail system, has been controversial from the start.

Northern Virginia’s congressional delegation has united with local elected officials, first in questioning the transfers to the Mark Center complex and then in pleading that they be delayed until road and intersections could be improved.

“This will be the sixth report showing that the Mark Center relocation will create intolerable traffic congestion,” said Rep. James P. Moran (D-Va.). “It’s a damning testament to the Army’s poor planning and the original sin of relocating a facility of this magnitude miles from Metro.”

With fewer than half of the transfers completed in September, the Virginia Department of Transportation found that traffic flow had been reduced to minimal acceptable standards, with morning backups on the Seminary Road exit ramps off Interstate 395, a major artery that carries commuters into Alexandria and the District.

The inspector general’s report is not the first to take issue with the Army’s calculations of the impact thousands of new drivers would have on one of the region’s most congested corridors, but coming from within the Pentagon, it may carry greater weight.

The Army’s written response was as blistering as the report itself, challenging every finding by the inspector general and rejecting each recommendation. The Army said it was cooperating with state and local officials, and providing more than $20 million for traffic improvements.

It said conducting a new traffic study — one that the inspector general said should use more “accurate, reliable” data than the Army’s last effort — would be a pointless exercise that would not “provide additional solutions to past or existing traffic issues.”

“What’s striking is how strongly worded the inspector general’s report is and how strongly the Army responded,” said Ron Kirby, transportation planning director for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. “These are not close views or assessments. They appear to be poles apart.”

Previous conflict

The Pentagon’s inspector general and the Army have jousted before over a 2008 transportation plan that the Army used to justify the transfers. In April, the inspector general said the Army “did not adequately address existing and projected peak hour volumes” in concluding they would have no significant impact on traffic.

The transfers result from the decision of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission to relocate thousands of Washington-area defense workers, with major expansions at Fort Meade, Fort Belvoir and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.