8/3 UPDATE: Army Ft. Belvoir Plan Draws Critics
Updated 8/3
From today's Metro section:
Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) will hold a hearing this month to question the Army about its plans for transferring 22,000 employees to Fort Belvoir, a member of his staff told Army leaders yesterday.
"He has a lot of concerns," Davis aide Bill Womack said. "There are too many moving parts to not take a closer look at this."
Womack's comments came at a meeting at the post of an advisory board formed by the post commander to gather comments on the Army's plans.
The Army announced last week that it is planning to cluster most of the relocated employees at the Engineer Proving Ground, a mostly vacant site a couple of miles northwest of the main post.
The plans have come under criticism from state and local officials who were hoping the Army would disperse the new workers more, on the main post and on an underused federal storage site.
-- Alec MacGillis
Updated 8/1
According to this article, the Army's plan is being strongly criticized by state and local officials.
Updated 7/31
In this article, Fort Belvoir's commander defends the decision to group the workers onm the Engineer Proving Ground.
Originally posted 7/28
The Army proposes to use the Engineer Proving Ground, located several miles from Fort Belvoir, as the work site for most of the 22,000 people whose jobs will be transferred to the base as part of the federal base realignment and closure process. The announcement upsets Fairfax leaders who say the plan will create more traffic problems for the county, The story is here.
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July 28, 2006; 10:10 AM ET
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Posted by: Anne | July 28, 2006 5:15 PM
I'm going to expand on the first writer's statement, in maybe a more humorless way.
There is a lot in common between the Department of Defense and many of the big, often out-of-state developers who want to redesign Fairfax County according to their own narrow interests.
Projects get twisted out of shape when the people who must live with the consequences are excluded from the decision-making. The Army (and many developers) want the perks of being able to build as much as they want to build, exactly where they want to build it, without having to pick up the public cost--in the Fort Belvoir case, $500 million in road improvements.
There will be no balance to these types of skewed proposals until the public is given a true role in the debate. We have a right and a role to play in deciding how much gridlock and tax burden we want to take on.
As far as our "dumbfounded" public leaders go, I have this to say on behalf of your citizens: Welcome to our world.
Posted by: Charles W. Hall | July 28, 2006 5:19 PM
I guess the big difference is that the County can say "no" to developers, but not to the Army. It is not going to be pretty. The only up side is that Army employees have a wider range of start times and that will at least spread some of the burden out. Really, though, this was years in coming and I don't see any suprises in it.
Mr. Hall is 100% right, though -- in the end we all live with the consequences when government does not talk to the people who will bear the burden. Doesn't matter what level of government it is. Dialogue is necessary.
Posted by: Anne | July 28, 2006 6:44 PM
To the last posting.....
Pull Rank on Whom.....citizens of Fairfax County?
Posted by: Bruce Bennett | July 29, 2006 12:37 AM
I've been told that, even with the construction of the Silver Line, the added growth at Tysons Corner would produce twice as many additional automobile trips as the proposed 28,000 new homes in Loudoun County. Why isn't Gerry Connolly addressing that issue, along with Fort Belvoir?
Posted by: Igor | July 29, 2006 8:21 AM
Because the spin on the rail in Tysons is that congestion will be reduced. I believe I have seen postings on other issues that 500,000 new vehicle trips will be produced per day based on the calculations of the 20 or so new plan applications that are sitting on the table for Tysons Corner development.
At a big Tysons Corner conference that was well attended by developers, contracts and few of the "others" (people who are concerned about impacts on neighborhoods, roads, etc), the concept Manhantenize Tysons Corner kept surfacing.
Posted by: Bruce Bennett | July 29, 2006 10:20 AM
Wonder how much will be saved after everything gets moved out of leased space and onto the federal land? As far as traffic, seems like the plan they're talking about would have little trouble on the Route 1 corridor after all, but what do you think will happen around 95 with people working at EPG? People in the least space are already out there in the traffic, so you'd think everything would balance out.
What would it take to get people to use the trains like VRE and Metro since there's a station right there already close by?
Posted by: Stoney | July 30, 2006 9:18 AM
The comments to this entry are closed.
There is truly nothing for anyone to be "dumbfounded" about. The EPG is clearly the best available solution from the Army's standpoint.