Defense Department commuters weigh realignment options

Commuters across the region are looking to the future and making plans to deal with the Base Realignment and Closure Act as the deadline inches closer.

Local Army and government representatives, the Virginia Department of Transportation and especially, workers, are looking at current living, driving and career practices and making plans for the future.

"Historically, BRAC means one of two kinds of things. Both of which can have a dramatic affect on the local community, including the military base," said Don Carr, Fort Belvoir's director of Public Affairs. "The local military bases and local communities share in the responsibility for what the impacts are likely to be, so we can develop mitigations to deal with those impacts."

BRAC literally means that a military base will either realign or close. Fort Belvoir will realign, though its change is different from traditional realignments, said Carr. BRAC is expected to bring an additional 19,000 military and civilian jobs to the installation by 2011.

"Belvoir's BRAC isn't bringing in a new population," he said, referring to the many agencies relocating from within the National Capital Region. "It took a while for everybody to realize, this isn't going to be so bad in terms of new population entering the region to work at Fort Belvoir."

Additionally, many agencies are leaving the NCR and realigning to other installations in Alabama, Kentucky and Texas. Fort Belvoir is one of eight installations around the country undergoing major realignment through BRAC. Unlike the others, Carr said, Belvoir's realignment is moving jobs to Fort Belvoir that are already in the post's commuting region.

Who's coming

One of the major agencies realigning to Fort Belvoir is the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. It encompasses the largest influx of jobs, bringing 8,500 positions to the Engineer Proving Ground.

Marshall Hudson, a public affairs staff officer at the NGA, is just one of the many employees affected by BRAC.
He lives in West Springfield and drives on Interstate 495 north to the NGA office in Bethesda, Md. in stop-and-go traffic. It usually takes Hudson anywhere from an hour to one hour and 15 minutes to get to work.

"For some of us, it's going to make things better," said Hudson. "It's going to be a dramatic change for the better for me. Basically, I'll have ten more hours a week to spend with my family."

Now, he will take the Fairfax County Parkway to get to work at Fort Belvoir's EPG.

"The impact the move will have on me is I won't have to participate in commuter traffic," said Hudson. "I already live in Springfield; one of my children is already in school. This is a positive."

An NGA intelligence worker, who wishes to remain anonymous, currently carpools to work with her husband on Interstate 270 from Germantown, Md. Their 21-mile drive takes around 45 minutes.

"Financially, it's not a good move for us," said the worker, who is not considering the commute from her current home to Fort Belvoir. "We have intentions of moving out of state ... if we've got to move it might as well be close to family."

They plan to move to central Pennsylvania and find new jobs in that area, as well.

Still, others are unsure of their future plans.

Audra Bray, an executive officer at NGA's General Council Office, lives in Montgomery County, Md. She takes I-270 to I-495 and then I-95 for a 35-minute commute. The relocation would add approximately 25 minutes to her daily commute.

"Right now, I'm uncertain," said Bray. "Moving is probably not an option ... we're just extremely too happy to move."
Bray's husband is an inspector with a police department in Washington, D.C., and two of their three children are currently in elementary school in Olney, Md.

The possible impact

Elaine McConnell, Springfield District supervisor on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, foresees the BRAC changes having positive and negative influences on the Springfield community. She believes jobs and the housing market will be positively affected, while traffic will be adversely affected.

"You have to deal with the traffic, but we've always had to deal with that ... its a few more people, this is nothing new. If you look back at the past, we were going to be a part of a development the size of Tyson's Corner," McConnell said, referring to a proposal to develop the EPG in the early 1990s. "If we work together on the traffic problems, this can be a good thing, rather than losing a base, a lot of people don't realize that, I think this is a good thing, I see it as a plus."

Additionally, McConnell, who retires at the end of the year after 24 years on the board, believes the Fort Belvoir Board of Advisors meetings greatly contribute to the Army and the local communities working
together.

"We're all working together to get things as smooth as possible," she said. "They're all coming from the area; they're not going to flood the schools."

Tom Fahrney, commonwealth BRAC coordinator for the Virginia Department of Transportation, also attends the BOA meetings.
"We were very concerned with the preferred alternative that was presented in the Environmental Impact Statement, putting 18,000 jobs on the EPG. VDOT forecasted a three-to-five mile backup on I-95," he said. "We are now (more optimistic) ... the Army is looking at alternative sites for (Washington Headquarters Services)."

The Record of Decision, the final document signed in August that allowed construction to begin on the NGA plant and new hospital limited the number of workers to be placed at EPG at 8,500.

It deferred a decision on where another 6,200 jobs, most of them with agencies of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and administered by WHS, will relocate. The ROD directed additional investigation and documentation of alternate locations, including consideration of a General Services Administration warehouse site in Springfield.

Meanwhile, uncertain as to where they will end up, employees were unable to comment for this article.

Transportation changes

"VDOT has $225 million allocated for improvements to the I-95 corridor and the Fairfax County Parkway," Fahrney said. "We are still hoping that the federal government will provide the additional funding necessary for projects shown in the Army's EIS that are necessary in mitigating BRAC development."

For the Fairfax County Parkway, VDOT has $115 million. VDOT received a grant for $1.9 million from Office of Economic Adjustments for environmental studies on I-95 and the Franconia/Springfield Parkway, where they interchange with the Fairfax County Parkway.

"We are continuing to negotiate with the Army and Federal Highway Administration on how to execute the final construction of the Fairfax County Parkway," he said. Right now, the plan is to have Federal Highways complete construction with VDOT funding.
"We are still talking and we're hopeful that we'll have agreements and solutions for the Fairfax County Parkway," he said. "We're more optimistic than we were."

Jason Michas, a staff officer with NGA's Corporate Relations Strategic Communications Branch, plans to use alternative transportation when NGA relocates.

"I worked at the Navy Yard and I took the train, so, I look forward to taking the train again," said Michas, referring to NGA's former location.

Currently, Michas rides in a van pool to work at the Bethesda office from his home in Bristow, Va. It takes him more than an hour to get to work.

After the move, he plans to take Virginia Railway Express to the Metro station at Springfield-Franconia and a shuttle bus will take him to EPG. NGA will provide a shuttle bus from Metro for its employees.

"I look at it as a positive thing," he said. "Aside from the commute, it will be a spectacular place to work."

Bryan, a development and information security worker with NGA, who wishes to be known only by first name, is looking forward
to the move and the possibility of a van pool from his home just outside of the EPG.

"It will be fantastic for me, I live 10 minutes door to trees, west of the EPG," he said. Bryan is a quadriplegic, with only some use of his arms, after breaking his neck 14 years ago.

He currently commutes to the NGA office in Bethesda. It takes him 35 minutes, without traffic, to get to work and one hour with traffic.

"Its all positive for me," he said, adding that he has a special van with a lift that could serve for a potential van pool.
Some workers are also concerned about the transportation.

"Even in Bethesda, you already know you've got to deal with the nightmare of the traffic," said Donna Thomas, a staff officer with NGA's Analysis and Production Directorate. "It's going to be a nightmare if they don't put in the roads."

Thomas drives from Sterling, Va., to work and it normally takes anywhere from 30 minutes to one and a half hours. She has one son, who will remain in the Loudoun County school system.

"I think (this move) will affect me in the drive to and from work. There's no public transportation from Sterling," added Thomas, who will probably retire in the next five or six years. "But, I don't have any issues with going to Springfield for a few years."
Helen Chapman also faces a difficult decision with commuting to Fort Belvoir, because moving is not an option.

"I like where I live, I've never wanted to relocate every time I change jobs," said the Martinsburg, W.Va. resident. "I'm not sure its going to be feasible."

Chapman's current commute takes three hours, one way, taking public transportation. The change would increase her commute, but she is also considering teleworking.

"In the end," said Carr, "the 19,000 workers whose jobs are realigning to Belvoir are asking themselves what their plans are for the future. Only time will tell what they ultimately decide."

Operations and quality-of-life programs on Army installations worldwide may be affected if the Army doesn't receive additional funding from Congress soon, according to Pentagon officials.

If funding continues to be delayed, it could affect as many as 200,000 civilian employees and contractors, Defense Department
officials reported.

Congress has approved supplemental funding for war operations, but the legislation comes attached with timetables for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. President Bush has vowed to veto any bill that imposes a mandatory troop-withdrawal date, and has called on Congress twice publicly to pass an emergency funding bill.

Some members of Congress have responded by saying the Pentagon has funds to continue operations through March. But a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday furlough notices for Army employees could start going out the middle of this month, because $178 billion in emergency funds have not yet been approved to continue the war on terror.

Military installations soon will have to shut down operations and furlough civilian employees, terminate contracts, and move into a "warm" status, according to DoD spokesman Bryan Whitman.

Although the employees would not be furloughed until late-February at the earliest, some contracts require a 60-day notice if the furlough will be longer than 30 days, Whitman said. The department is using Fiscal Year 2008 funds - not part of the supplemental funding needed - to keep operations going in the war on terror, he explained.

DoD is using its readiness funding, or operations and maintenance accounts, which typically pay for training, supplies and weapons and equipment maintenance.

Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates requested to shift $3.7 billion from Navy and Air Force payrolls and an $800 million excess in the working capital fund to Army and Marine Corps operations. Gates directed the Army and Marine Corps to begin planning to reduce operations at all Army bases by mid-February and all Marine installations by mid-March.

In a memorandum dated Nov. 26, Gen. Richard A. Cody, vice chief of staff of the Army, directed all Army commanders and agency directors to begin planning to curtail operations and related expenses that do not directly support warfighters engaged in the Global War on Terrorism.

Cody's instructions required Army commanders and civilian leaders to review all operations and to forward their cost-cutting recommendations to him by Tuesday.

"In mid-February, the Army will run out of all of their O&M funding for the entire year, because they will have spent it on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq," Whitman said. "That will require some fairly significant and harsh actions by the department, specifically the Army. And, the Marine Corps is only about a month behind them."

"Facts are the facts. We're trying to keep people as well informed as we can, but anybody that thinks that we have sufficient funding to go beyond what we have stated is just either misinformed or electing not to examine the facts," he said.

(Compiled from American Forces Press Service releases)

Commuting in the cities

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, overall commuters in the United States spend a mean time of only 25.5 minutes on the road to work. Here is a look at the mean commuting times for some U.S. major metropolitan areas:
• New York: 40
• Chicago: 35.2
• Philadelphia: 32.0
• D.C.: 29.7
• Los Angeles: 29.6
• Boston: 28.8
• Houston: 27.4
• St. Louis: 25.1
(All times listed are in minutes based on Census 2000)