Paralyzed Roads Envisioned Near Belvoir

Squeezed between Route 1 and the Potomac River, Fort Belvoir has never been easy to reach. Route 1 traffic, shown here, is regularly congested. (By Rich Lipski -- The Washington Post)

"They have no plan except for the tooth fairy plan: 'We hope Congress will see its way clear to provide a few hundred million in transportation infrastructure,' " said Gerald E. Connolly (D), chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. "That's not a plan."

The transportation challenge provides ammunition to those who from the outset have challenged the military's regional realignment approach, which has centered on transferring about 30,000 employees from the District and such inner suburbs as Arlington County and Alexandria to farther-out locations -- primarily Fort Belvoir but also Quantico and Fort Meade. Army leaders say that in the post-Sept. 11 world, it is unsafe to have employees in urban office buildings. They also say it would be more economical to group agencies on government land, like Fort Belvoir, instead of continuing to pay rent.

Critics question that rationale. Even after the attack on the Pentagon, they say, it is far from clear that employees in relatively obscure agencies scattered in offices across the region are at any risk. Skeptics also question the military's claims of $49 billion in nationwide savings, noting that the Army's $4 billion budget for the relocations to Belvoir don't include many related costs, including roads.

The dispersal is also likely to accelerate the effects of sprawl, critics say. Moving 30,000 jobs out of the region's core makes it much harder for workers to reach them by transit. And the dispersal will spur more in its wake, in the form of the thousands of contractors who are expected to follow the military to Belvoir, Meade and Quantico.

The military "in one fell swoop made the most substantial land-use decision in the Washington region since the building of Metro," said Stewart Schwartz, director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. "It's that substantial in terms of shifting jobs and infrastructure farther out, where we can ill afford them."

The Army counters that it had transit in mind when it placed so many workers at the proving ground, because that site is closer to the Franconia-Springfield Metro station than the main post and would be easier to reach with a Metro extension. Critics, including Fairfax Supervisor T. Dana Kauffman (D-Lee), question the Army's decision not to try harder to make use of the most transit-friendly site, a mammoth federal warehouse within walking distance of the station.

Local officials recognize that the thousands of workers headed their way will help the rejuvenation of southern Fairfax. But they say this would have been better accomplished by better scattering the new employees, rather than clustering them mostly at the proving ground.

"It's like going into a restaurant and ordering a sandwich and getting the entire menu in one sitting," Kauffman said. "And in this case, it's all on one site."