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5
Findings and Recommendations
natuRe oF the PRoblem
The BRAC 2005 round differed fundamentally from previous base
realignments. Unlike previous BRAC rounds, which primarily dealt with
base closures, BRAC 2005 concentrated tens of thousands of additional
personnel at a number of bases located in metropolitan areas with already
inadequate transportation infrastructure and experiencing substantial
congestion. The date when BRAC decisions must be fully implemented
(September 2011) is far too soon for the bases and surrounding commu
nities to avoid significant added traffic congestion for military personnel
and other commuters during peak travel periods. The resulting traffic
delays will impose substantial new costs on surrounding communities
and the military.
The BRAC 2005 round is being implemented under an extra
ordinary set of circumstances. The nation is fighting wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Even as it maintains a substantial troop presence in Iraq,
major redeployments are causing sharp spikes of increased personnel at
domestic bases, including those affected by BRAC 2005. In the post9/11
environment, the federal government, particularly the military, is impos
ing security requirements on its facilities to protect them from domestic
terrorist acts. Security imperatives are resulting in a concentration of
civilian and military personnel in more secure locations within metro
politan areas but away from downtowns and other areas of concentrated
commercial activity where transit is an option.
In the last three years, the nation has experienced the worst
economic downturn since the Great Depression, which has had direct
consequences for federal, state, and local transportation budgets. The
BRAC 2005 consequences for communities located near military bases
are occurring when these governments are unusually strapped for
funds. Moreover, the civilian transportation programs the Department of
Defense (DoD) expects to help support transportation improvements—
particularly the federal surface transportation program—are more than a
year past due for reauthorization, in part because sufficient funding can
not be found to meet the needs of states, metropolitan areas, and transit
authorities. A nearterm resolution of this problem is not at all likely.
Federal, state, and local civilian authorities would have struggled
to respond to the BRAC 2005 impacts on transportation networks under
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normal circumstances. In the current context, existing programs and
processes are unable to cope with these new and unexpected demands,
particularly within the constrained time frame. Many of the bases affected
are located in builtup areas within metropolitan regions that already
experience heavy congestion in peak periods, which will worsen with
additional travelers. The processes required under federal law for envi
ronmental review, citizen participation, and longrange planning often
require a decade or more before funding can be committed and construc
tion initiated. At several bases, the required facilities and services will
not be in place when personnel are relocated, which may result in severe
congestion on facilities serving these bases.
The necessarily and largely secret process used in BRAC determi
nations and troop redeployments has compounded demands on civil
infrastructure. By all appearances, the Commission did not have a full
accounting of the transportation impacts or costs that would be imposed
on communities. Once the decisions became known, the affected commu
nities did not have time, especially under current economic circumstances,
to locate funds or rearrange longplanned and agreed upon capital plans to
support the new demands on their transportation networks.
Addressing traffic congestion in dense metropolitan areas is a chal
lenging and complex process. With the addition of military traffic, it
becomes even more difficult. The requirements of the military mission and
the needs of the surrounding communities must be taken into account
when developing strategies to improve the transportation system.
Finding 1
Increased highway traffic generated by base growth due to BRAC
2005, policies to grow the size of the military services, and rapid rede-
ployments have worsened or will worsen traffic congestion in some
metropolitan areas. The potential problems are quite serious for civil-
ian and military users of transport systems in these areas. Even before
military redeployments of large numbers of personnel, major metropolitan
areas were facing increased traffic congestion, greater traffic delays, and
declining triptime reliability. These areas have been struggling to man
age their traffic congestion, improve reliability, and increase safety using a
range of transportation options. Personnel increases at a number of bases
located in these major metropolitan areas have exacerbated this congestion
and threaten to make the situation unmanageable in some locations. As
transportation networks reach their saturation points, any additional traffic
has a disproportionate, nonlinear impact on delay and can degrade facili
ties from reduced speed to stopandgo conditions.
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Findings and Recommendations
The consequences are somewhat different from relocations of civil
ian workers to more secure military locations. Fort Belvoir North, the
Mark Center, and much of Fort Meade are office complexes without mili
tary operations, whereas Joint Base Lewis–McChord, Fort Bliss, and Eglin
Air Force Base are operating bases made up largely of military personnel.
In these cases, civilian workers, many of whom were previously able
to rely on transit to get to work, are having their jobs relocated to areas
where this option is limited. Surveys of Defense Information Systems
Agency employees being moved to Fort Meade in Maryland show that
most of them plan to continue commuting from their current residences
in Virginia. In other cases, the congestion is caused by the concentration
of military personnel and their families, many of whom will be living in
housing off the base, often far off the base where housing affordability
matches military incomes. These men and women will become new com
muters on already congested facilities, often commuting long distances.
In either the case of relocated civilian workers living in the region or of
military people moving into the region, the impacts on traffic may be
significant but have different options for responding.
Finding 2
Military personnel and civilians working for the military are adversely
affected by growing congestion. Longer and more arduous commutes
risk loss of retention of senior, highly skilled civilian workers. Military
personnel face severe congestion accessing Joint Base Lewis–McChord
every day. Military training plans are disrupted by the inability to carry
out exercises during periods of heavy traffic congestion. Joint Base
Lewis–McChord must carry out troop movements to the training facil
ity at night to avoid congestion. Personnel and visitors to the National
Naval Medical Center face severe congestion on Rockville Pike (the
major state route connecting the base to downtown and I495 and
I270). Personnel traveling to and from the Mark Center will encounter
extreme congestion and lengthened trip times. The cost of this conges
tion is not accounted for in the BRAC 2005 assessment of the impacts
of military personnel relocations.
institutional misalignment
The BRAC 2005 process has illuminated a significant misalignment
between military decision processes and expectations and civilian
transportationplanning and funding allocation processes in BRAC
cases and more generally.
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Finding 3
There is a substantial institutional misalignment between base plan-
ning by the military and planning by civilian authorities responsible
for regional transportation infrastructure that the military depends on.
Bases are counting on civilian resources to address their offbase transporta
tion needs, but no process is in place to ensure that those needs will be met.
There is also not an adequate process in place for funneling the right kind
of information (such as information on congestion and subsequent costs to
the military) up the chain when BRAC and other military base decisions are
made. These difficulties are compounded by several other issues:
• DoD policies and guidance regarding base–community collabo
ration and regional planning are inadequate. The required base
master plans do not regularly relate to the regional plans of the
surrounding communities, nor do they anticipate largescale
troop relocations.
• Base commanders do not regularly communicate or work with
surrounding communities to resolve transportation problems.
In some cases, base commanders are engaged, depending on
the perspectives of the commander, but that engagement is not
ensured once a commander is reassigned.
• Post9/11, the government is relocating some facilities to remote
and more secure locations. In metropolitan areas, this reloca
tion results in moving people to places accessible primarily by
automobile and difficult to serve by transit. This policy direction
is the opposite of what many metropolitan agencies are trying to
accomplish to reduce energy consumption and attain or maintain
Clean Air Act requirements. In some metropolitan areas, plan
ners are seeking to increase the density of development to reduce
vehicle trips and service costs.
• The role of DoD’s Office of Economic Adjustment (OEA) is useful
but reactive. OEA provides technical assistance and funding for
impact studies only after the decision has been made to relocate
personnel. The OEA staff have expertise and familiarity with
DoD and communityplanning processes that would be useful to
apply much earlier in the process.
Recommendation 1
Military base master plans should be developed in cooperation
with the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) transportation-
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Findings and Recommendations
planning process to ensure that (a) military transportation needs are
integrated into the overall regional transportation context, (b) the
bases’ impacts on surrounding communities are accounted for in civil-
ian plans, and (c) military base expansion plans are consistent with
civilian plans. Every base has a master plan and capital budget that is
consistent with the military budgeting cycle. These plans focus on military
construction needs on the base. In the future, these master plans should be
developed in cooperation with the MPO planning process so that projects
to improve base transportation access can be included in MPO’s long
range plans and shorterterm transportation improvement programs. Base
master plans should include not only capital costs but also operating costs
for transit service and travel demand measures. Master plans should be
updated on a reasonable time schedule. Funds should be allocated to the
bases to cover an adequate master planning process.
Recommendation 2
DoD should require base commanders to address off-base access con-
gestion problems and should provide them with guidance, expertise,
and resources. It should allow commanders who do good planning and
save money in energy and other base operating accounts to keep such
funds and apply them to base and off-base transportation needs. DoD
should also require base commanders to collaborate with communities
to address base impacts on these communities. Currently, base com
manders make decisions about the extent of cooperation and collaboration
with surrounding communities. Base commanders should work toward
resolving traffic congestion caused in part by base expansion. At present,
there is little policy guidance for them to accomplish this activity. More
over, there is little economic incentive for them to address offbase issues.
However, enhanced use leasing revenues and operating and maintenance
and employee compensation accounts provide funds that could be used
to improve base access if dedicated for that purpose. DoD should develop
guidance and procedures to help base commanders collaborate and coop
erate with surrounding communities to address issues resulting from base
activities. In many communities, the military is the largest single employer.
Large private sector firms that dominate employment in a region play a
significant role in public sector plans. The military has a similar role to play.
Recommendation 3
The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) should direct MPOs
to include military base transportation needs in their planning
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processes. To assist in accomplishing this activity, USDOT should
require MPOs to include military representatives on an ongoing
basis as liaisons on decision-making boards of MPOs with other
major stakeholders. MPOs are responsible for developing plans to
address the transportation needs in their metropolitan regions. MPOs’
plans should account for the travel needs of military bases in their areas.
Projects that are required to meet these needs should be placed on
the longrange plan and transportation improvement programs. These
projects would be required to meet the same legal, environmental, and
regulatory requirements of any project in the plan and program. In
developing better communication, the public sector will have to respect
military needs for security and be able to protect sensitive information.
Security clearances for some MPO staff may be necessary.
Recommendation 4
The role of the OEA should be increased; the agency should pro-
vide ongoing support to military and civilian planning agencies and
not be brought in simply to help fix problems after decisions are
made. Resources should be provided to enable this expanded role.
OEA staff could develop the guidance to base commanders called for in
Recommendation 2 and assist MPOs in understanding military transpor
tation needs and processes. Ongoing assistance of this nature could help
reduce the current mismatches between military planning and expecta
tions and civilian planning and funding capability. OEA should develop
technical procedures, manuals, training courses, and website resources
as well as provide technical assistance to military bases on transportation
planning.
Finding 4
There is an additional disconnect within the military between
planning and budgeting processes. Agencies and staff in DoD are
not developing and sharing information or facilitating processes that
would identify all the direct and indirect costs of traffic congestion and
the range of related funding sources available to give base command
ers resources that could help address base impacts. The only available
funding source to address offbase impacts, the Defense Access Roads
(DAR) program, is a small capitalonly program limited to road projects.
No segregated resources are available to pay ongoing operating costs,
such as transit subsidies and travel demand measures, which is necessary
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Findings and Recommendations
for addressing traffic congestion in metropolitan areas. Funds available
to commanders are not aligned with their needs or obligations under
Recommendation 2 to help resolve congestion caused by base expansion.
For the DAR program, the time limitation on obligating funds is inad
equate to provide local and state agencies time to find funds and make
their financial commitments. (See Recommendations 7 to 13 below for
recommendations on funding.)
Finding 5
The outcome of decisions made to relocate civilian workers and
troops suggests that insufficient attention was paid to off-base
impacts. To the extent to which BRAC 2005 relied on informa-
tion collected on surrounding community transportation capacity
during the BRAC information-gathering phase, it may have been
misinformed. The information calls made to inform the BRAC analy
sis process do not reach individuals at the metropolitan level aware of
potential offbase impacts and constraints, which can result in sub
optimal outcomes. In the BRAC process, information is sought from
personnel on bases who are not necessarily aware of metropolitan area
traffic, constraints on capacity expansion, and longrange improvement
plans. This situation can result in a lack of appreciation of the carrying
capacity of regional infrastructure and the difficulty of expanding it to
meet military needs.
Recommendation 5
When considering moving personnel into congested metropolitan
areas, DoD should take into account regional congestion impacts
and mitigation costs at a greater level of detail than in the past.
DoD should greatly improve the quality of information considered
when deciding whether to move military and civilian personnel into
congested metropolitan areas. Infrastructure receiving capacity is
considered now, but the sources turned to for information are not as
knowledgeable as needed. The information should account for the
capabilities of surrounding communities to absorb additional traffic
and the costs imposed. These costs should be considered whenever
DoD analyzes the costs and benefits of relocating personnel and assets
to bases in metropolitan areas. This kind of information should be
required in any future BRAC rounds that consolidate base personnel
in metropolitan areas.
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natuRe oF RequiRed solutions
The expansion plans of bases in metropolitan areas create the same set
of issues that new private developments create and require the same set
of strategies. Some strategies to be employed may affect only a small
percentage of travelers, but such shifts can be important for network
performance. Facilities in metropolitan areas are congested for complex
reasons, including inadequate funding and the difficulty and cost of
expanding facilities. Institutional realignments, such as those recom
mended above, will also be necessary along with improved funding
described in the funding section.
Finding 6
Transportation programs to reduce congestion that may appear to be
small can have large benefits. The disproportionate, nonlinear impact
of increased traffic in congested networks also works in reverse. Programs
and policies that adjust the travel behavior of a small percentage of travel
ers in congested settings have a disproportionate benefit for traffic flow,
which means that travel demand management programs that allow work
ers to shift the time of travel, shift mode, change route, or work from home
can have important effects on regional congestion and delay levels.
Finding 7
A broad range of transportation strategies are required to address
metropolitan area congestion and access needs. Metropolitan planning
agencies across the nation recognize that automobile access alone
cannot meet all travel demand needs in builtup areas. Highway networks
in densely developed metropolitan areas are critical for the economic vitality
of these regions, but once development occurs around these facilities they
become extremely difficult and expensive to expand to meet rising demand.
Moreover, requirements of the Clean Air Act have shifted many areas’ priori
ties toward transit and travel demand management. In areas with saturated
networks in peak periods, travel demand must be managed to motivate
travelers to shift travel times and change modes to avoid peak congestion.
Recommendation 6
A wide range of options should be used to ameliorate traffic conges-
tion and travel time delay caused by base expansions. Transportation
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Findings and Recommendations
demand management measures should be used, including highoccupancy
vehicle and highoccupancy toll lanes, ramp metering, parking manage
ment and pricing, carpooling and vanpooling, transit benefit programs,
bus shuttles, telework and telework centers, and variable work hours
and schedules. Expanded transit services will be necessary in some cases.
Infrastructureintensive alternatives should be included, although they
may be difficult to deploy and will take years to implement in all but the
simplest cases.
Finding 8
Short- and long-term strategies will be needed to address traffic con-
gestion problems. In the short term, transit services can be expanded
and travel demand measures implemented in affected communities.
Within a few years, marginal capacity enhancements can be made by
adding ramps, access lanes, and additional gates as well as access roads
serving them.
Finding 9
Looking toward the future, changes in institutional processes and
improved communication and planning could avoid the severity
of congestion impacts expected and being experienced because of
BRAC 2005 and other military policies and decisions. Recommen
dations 1 to 7 above are intended to provide longerterm solutions to
military expansion plans in metropolitan areas.
Funding
A variety of existing and new funding sources will need to be tapped
to better serve military transportation access needs in the future and to
avoid imposing large costs on surrounding communities. Immediate
needs will require extraordinary responses.
Finding 10
A variety of funds are available to improve transportation facilities
and services; these funds are always highly contested but are unusu-
ally so in the current budget environment. The DAR program has
provided about $20 million annually in recent years, but the program is
funded through the military construction (MILCON) budget, which is
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being pressed to provide barracks, training facilities, and other military
base necessities that are of more immediate importance to base com
manders than offbase traffic congestion. Enhanced use leases, which
permit bases to retain lease income from private developments on base
land that serve the military, and base operating and maintenance budgets
could provide partial sources of funding for transportation improvements.
Employee compensation accounts could also assist in areas such as
transit subsidies. About $200 billion is spent annually by all levels
of government for highway and transit capacity, maintenance, and
operations, but these funds are not adequate to meet the demands placed
on them, particularly in this period of constrained government budgets.
Multiple demands on existing federalaid funds make it difficult for
some states and regions to apply such funds to problems caused by
military growth.
Finding 11
Other than the DAR program, the military traditionally accepts no
responsibility for transportation congestion and transportation-
related environmental impacts outside the gates of its bases. As
indicated above, in some cases military personnel are adversely affected
through the potential consequences for retention of valued workers and
disruption of training for soldiers.
The normal way to address the impact of largescale private
developments in communities is to require them to pay some form of an
impact fee in addition to the fuel and other taxes they pay. Communi
ties have increasingly required new private developments to pay their
share of the public infrastructure required to serve them. These fees are
assessed over and above the user fees that fund transportation programs
and other taxes businesses are required to pay. Absent these payments,
communities can prevent the development from being built (which is not
an option when DoD is the developer). As the cost of new infrastructure
and the difficulties and delay associated with building new infrastructure
have increased, many communities have become less willing to ask exist
ing residents to fund the costs of transportation improvements necessi
tated by major new developments.
Recommendation 7
DoD should pay its share of base access transportation needs in a
region, regardless of where they occur, on par with costs imposed
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Findings and Recommendations
on private developers. DoD should pay its share of the cost to improve
transportation networks to handle the increased travel demand of mili
tary bases in metropolitan areas.
To determine the military share, a transportation impact study
would be required to determine the transportation improvements needed
to meet the increased travel demand resulting from increased personnel
at military bases. It would ascertain the share of that demand resulting
from military travel and from other traffic. The cost of those transporta
tion improvements would then be allocated to the military and other
users based on their share of increased travel. In practice, the allocation
of cost responsibility is complex and requires careful analysis and model
ing in some cases. In addition, there is no single, established methodol
ogy for carrying out the analysis. Whatever analytic process is used, it
should be consistent with the principles listed below.
The following principles should apply in defining cost responsibility:
• The military should make the same contributions that a devel
oper would have to make, if any, including whatever concessions
are routinely provided. Thus, any required fee should be mod
eled on how impact fees are imposed on the private sector. If a
region welcomes private developments without charging fees or
receiving exactions, then they should not expect DoD to provide
support for transportation improvements for base expansion.
The principle is that DoD should face the same consequences as
a private developer.
• The military responsibility should extend only to restoring the
level of service to what it was before the new traffic was added.
• The geographic area of responsibility should be defined by com
mute sheds rather than some predefined distance from the base
perimeter.
• Military cost responsibility should be conditioned on the civil
sector contributing its share. (Projected growth in civilian traffic
would need to be included in assigning cost responsibility. It is
not expected that a DoD impact fee would cover the whole cost
of needed improvements if it is not the only source of future
traffic growth.)
• Nonlinearities of impacts and costs should be accounted for
and reflected in the impact fee. In allocating costs imposed on
traffic flow, the impact of the last marginal user tends to be the
most disproportionate; thus, assigning the responsibility for this
impact imposes a disproportionate cost. Given projected traffic
growth from the civil sector, the incremental growth between the
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military and the civil sector should be shared based on projected
growth on the civil side and the new traffic added because of the
military.
Finding 12
The DAR program is inadequate for addressing military base trans-
portation impacts in metropolitan areas. The DAR program eligibility
criterion of a doubling of traffic due to military demand is not appropri
ate in metropolitan areas with already congested facilities. Moreover, as
the only DoD transportation capital program to address offbase impacts,
the limitation of funding to road improvements does not reflect metro
politan areas’ dependence on transit for serving a proportion of work
trips in peak periods.
Recommendation 8
The DAR criteria should be updated to respond to base transpor-
tation needs in dense metropolitan areas. The doublingoftraffic
criterion should be eliminated for projects in metropolitan areas and
replaced by the principles for determining cost responsibility listed in
Recommendation 7.
Recommendation 9
DAR funds should be fenced within MILCON so that once funds have
been committed for a transportation project they cannot be pulled
back to serve some other purpose, short of an emergency. In addi-
tion, the 5-year constraint on obligation of funds should be extended
parallel to USDOT funding. The required “fencing” of funds can be done
by DoD as policy or it can be specified by Congress. Funds for base access
requirements should be increased and segregated in a separate fund so
that they do not have to compete with other MILCON projects. The cur
rent 5year limit on expenditures should also be eased to allow states and
regions to develop plans, complete environmental reviews, allow for citizen
participation, and commit other funds for the projects.
Recommendation 10
A new DoD capital and operating assistance program should be
created for nonhighway capital improvement projects to mitigate
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Findings and Recommendations
base transportation impacts in a MILCON account dedicated to
this purpose. As with the DAR program, this funding should be
fenced. A number of bases have developed traffic management plans that
include more transit and shuttles, telecommuting, variable work hours
and schedules, and other traffic demand management techniques. These
projects, however, are not eligible for DAR funding. The recommended
funding program might be administered by USDOT with funds provided
by DoD, in parallel with administration of the DAR program by FHWA.
As with the recommended changes to enhance the DAR program, funds
for this program should be fenced from other military purposes.
Finding 13
Personnel increases at military bases benefit surrounding commu-
nities. Increases in base personnel provide an economic stimulus for
surrounding communities. Many base personnel live off base where they
shop and engage in other activities. Further, these expenditures contrib
ute tax revenues. In practice, few communities would resist the reloca
tion of military personnel to their area despite the traffic disruptions they
might cause.
Recommendation 11
State and local agencies should pay their share of base access trans-
portation needs. Military travel demands on metropolitan transporta
tion networks are only part of the travel requirements of these networks.
State and local agencies are responsible for serving these other demands.
State and local agencies should also pay their share of transportation
improvements to serve the military travel demand in their region. State
and local agencies may have to change their transportation priorities and
reallocate funds from other projects in their capital plans to meet the new
demands.
Recommendation 12
Military bases should work through states and MPOs to seek regular
local, state, and federal transportation funds. Although severely con
strained in the near term to address immediate needs, federal, state, and
local transportation funds should continue to be sought for military base
transportation access projects. If base–community planning processes are
better aligned in the future, as recommended above, military transportation
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projects will have a better chance of being incorporated into longrange
transportation plans and being funded through traditional civil trans
portation funding mechanisms. For the near term, funds should also be
sought from USDOT’s Transportation Investment Generating Economic
Recovery grants.
Finding 14
There is substantial evidence that in an unusually short period an
extraordinary amount of new traffic will be added to already con-
gested facilities serving some military bases around the country.
These problems cannot be addressed with current funding and
processes, nor would they be addressed by the recommendations
made above. Some corridors, such as the section of I395 serving the
Mark Center, cannot be expanded with new lanes, but problems can
be eased with expanded transit, improved exit and egress lanes, and
travel demand measures. I5 serves Joint Base Lewis–McChord as well
as being the main freight artery for the state of Washington. Its capacity
constraints are significant and expansion would be extremely expensive.
Similarly, I395 and I95 in Northern Virginia are already heavily con
gested in peak periods and will be overwhelmed by the additional traffic
from personnel increases at Fort Belvoir and the Mark Center. Waiting
for projects to address these problems to be funded through the normal
transportation cycle, given continued delays in reauthorizing federal
surface transportation programs and the much diminished size of state
transportation budgets, means that severe congestion problems around
growing military bases could go unaddressed for years.
The committee cannot estimate the amount of financial assistance
needed in affected areas and recognizes that virtually no amount of
money will result in freeflow traffic conditions; however, some improve
ments are possible. The committee examined only a few case studies and
did not have the resources to conduct detailed analyses of options in the
cases it examined. It is convinced, however, of the potential exceptional
severity of the impacts in these locations and presumes the same could
be true in other locations.
Recommendation 13
Congress should consider either (a) a one-time, out-of-budget cycle,
special appropriation or (b) a reprogramming of uncommitted
stimulus act funds to address the transportation problems caused by
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Findings and Recommendations
BRAC 2005 relocations. The intent of these funds would be to initiate
projects as soon as possible that would reduce the severity of congestion
impacts within 3 years. Both operating and capital funds for construc
tion of facilities as well as support for increased transit services and travel
demand measures should be included. Thus, the projects to be funded
should be those that
• Are capable of being initiated within 1 year and can be completed
within 3 years,
• Will have demonstrable benefits on reducing traffic congestion in
adversely affected corridors regardless of mode, and
• Are partially funded from local or state funds.
Congress should charge the Secretary of Transportation with devel
oping an estimate of needed funds, in consultation with affected com
munities, and making a recommendation to Congress for funding. The
estimate should be developed within 45 days. To ensure that the highest
priority projects are supported with these funds, the projects should be
selected by the Secretary based on those that best meet the criteria listed
above. To expedite the environmental review of these projects, the Secre
tary should include them on his list of priority projects for environmental
streamlining.
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