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Quantico expansion worries local officials BRAC >> New jobs will jam already crowded roads

September 8, 2007 12:35 am

By KELLY HANNON

Military officials in Washington will not extend the public comment period on a report that studies how 3,000 additional jobs at Quantico Marine Corps Base by 2011 will impact surrounding communities.

Supervisors in Stafford and Prince William counties asked for a 60-day extension. The request came from the Quantico Growth Management Committee, a group with elected representatives from both counties.

Members first received the report, currently a draft, in July. The deadline for comments was Tuesday.

The denial made it difficult to adequately respond to the 308-page military study, said Stafford Supervisor Mark Dudenhefer, co-chair of the growth management committee.

"To me the Marine Corps is a big part of our economy and we've always worked together on these issues, but they've appeared not too anxious to work with us" this time, Dudenhefer said.

The base is required to complete an environmental impact statement before the 3,000 jobs move to the western half of the base by 2011. The jobs are slated to move to Quantico under the federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission's recommendations.

The military's investigative agencies are being located at Quantico, joining the FBI Academy.

In declining to extend the public comment time, the Department of the Navy, which encompasses the Marine Corps, cited a legal requirement to make all BRAC decisions by September 2011. Allowing for extra comment time now could jeopardize this schedule, wrote E.G. Payne, assistant deputy commandant of the Department of the Navy.

"Further, it is worth noting that there is another opportunity for the public to comment on the document as it progresses," Payne wrote in a Sept. 4 letter to Dudenhefer and Prince William Supervisor Maureen Caddigan, the committee's other co-chair.

The draft statement looks at whether the influx of extra people and vehicles will alter the environment, area population and roads.

But the growth management committee is concerned that not enough attention has been paid to local communities.

The statement "is limited to the activities that will occur within the boundaries of Marine Corps Base Quantico, and does not attempt to measure the impacts of private development anticipated to follow the various groups coming to the Base," wrote Dudenhefer and Caddigan in the committee's response.

Defense contractors are expected to cluster near the base.

A site is available on U.S. 1 immediately south of Russell Road, one of the main roads leading to base gates near the Stafford-Prince William county line. Up to 1 million square feet of office space could be built on the 85-acre site.

Traffic congestion near the base has been a central point of debate at meetings of the growth management committee.

The statement recommends a number of transportation improvements, including widening Russell Road to the job site west of Interstate 95, adding turn lanes, installing traffic signals and widening several Interstate 95 exit and entrance ramps.

Since these projects will improve base roads, the military will pay for the work.

The military is not planning to pay for improvements to Stafford County roads. Additional turn lanes and some signal changes are needed at base access near Onville and Garrisonville roads, and Telegraph Road and U.S. 1, according to the statement.

Committee members have recommendations for improvements. The highlights:

Telegraph Road upgrades should be completed before 2011, and the proposals for Onville Road and Garrisonville Road are not enough.

"A left turn lane and signalization changes at Onville will not mitigate the congestion increases," wrote Dudenhefer and Caddigan.

Quantico needs to consider how tight security could impact traffic.

The current traffic analysis "does not recognize and address the impact of a 24/7 100 percent ID check, which is already increasing delays at intersections coming into Quantico base and at neighborhood subdivision intersections as well," Dudenhefer and Caddigan wrote.

Stafford and Prince William believe they qualify for a federal program that pays for civilian road improvements when military bases cause a dramatic increase in traffic.

Dudenhefer said the draft statement was scheduled to be released in April, but the military was several months behind schedule. Additional time would have been helpful, he said.

"We only had four weeks to review it, and they had seven, eight months to put it together," Dudenhefer said.

However, 1st Lt. Brian P. Donnelly, Quantico public affairs spokesman, said in an e-mail that Stafford and Prince William would have had the same amount of time to comment if the report had come out in April. The comment period was limited to 45 days.