Expansion Proposal For Navy Hospital Draws Traffic Fears

The Navy is developing plans that would nearly double the number of patients and visitors to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, an expansion that some residents and politicians fear will significantly increase traffic congestion along Wisconsin Avenue.

The preliminary plans, which are now being revealed publicly, are designed to accommodate the closing of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the District as part of Base Realignment and Closure Commission recommendations adopted last year.

They include a new hospital to be attached to the medical center, one or more parking garages, a medical museum and roads for the consolidation, which by law must be completed by September 2011.

"I can predict that in fairly short order, it is going to raise many red flags in many neighborhoods," said Del. William A. Bronrott (D-Montgomery), who represents Bethesda in the Maryland General Assembly. "We're looking at a very dramatic change, a folding together of Walter Reed and the Bethesda Naval Hospital into one enormous facility."

The Navy has put forward two alternatives. The first could result in an annual increase of 435,000 patients and visitors; the center had 497,000 in 2005. It also would add 1,400 employees to the 8,000 who account for a majority of the traffic at the medical compound.

The Navy estimates that an additional 2,000 vehicles, an 18 percent increase, would pass through the main gate on Wisconsin Avenue (Route 355) each day. An August traffic count found 11,271 vehicles entering in one day, said Cmdr. John Zulick, the engineer in charge of construction and maintenance at the center. Another 1,100 people came through the gate after taking transportation or walking.

"Just when we thought we couldn't take any more traffic on our roads," Bronrott said. "Route 355 is already seriously overcrowded."

The second option would add, on top of the first option's figures, 100,000 visitors a year, 1,100 employees and 450 vehicles a day through the gate, the Navy estimates. It also would include more parking and infrastructure. Alternatively, the Navy could do nothing, but it would require changing the congressionally mandated BRAC Law, according to the Navy. "The existing facilities are insufficient," said Brian Badura, a spokesman for the medical center.

The changes come at a time when Walter Reed and the Naval Medical Center are devoting enormous resources to treating service members, many of whom were grievously injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The plan calls for the consolidation of medical, educational and administrative activities at the naval hospital, which will be renamed the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and will become what the Department of Defense envisions as the nation's premier military medical facility.

The Navy foresees building an addition to the Bethesda medical center in an area now used as a parking lot on the north side of the existing hospital building and tower. The landmark tower, based on a design proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, would remain in use as an administrative building.