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Feds Build $1 Billion Virginia Office Complex Without Parking Or Roads to Get To It

By Warner Todd Huston Wednesday, October 6, 2010

The federal government has built a one billion dollar office complex in Virginia to house some 6,400 Pentagon workers that are to be moved soon. It’s a beautiful new office complex that rises like a mountain next to Northern Virginia’s I-395. But there are a few little problems.

There is no parking for one thing and for another, even if there was a parking lot for 6,400 workers, there are no roads to GET them there!

That’s right, there is no access that won’t cause tremendous traffic jams for the area. Worse, there aren’t any bus or Metro train stops anywhere near the building so workers cannot even take advantage of the Washington area’s extensive public transportation network to get to their new offices.

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A giant office complex sits nearing completion costing a billion dollars and no one can get to it.

This is the complete incompetence of government on full display.

And these people want to handle our vital healthcare?

Read it all.

According to the article below, there were plans to put some parking spaces in the complex, but local politicians inserted a provision limiting the parking spaces to a grossly inadequate 1,000 “until a viable transportation plan is hatched that all parties can agree on.” Considering that local tree-huggers have blocked the construction of a ramp connecting the highway to the office complex, it’s anybody’s guess when – or if – any such agreement will ever take place.

The US has already has plenty of nature areas – arguably too many. If local residents insist on a nature area with no highway ramps nearby, it behooves them to buy some land somewhere else, at their own expense, and set it up where it won’t block access to anything important in the foreseeable future.

Everyone is asking why the Defense Department chose such a site and begin building on it without first making certain that there would be no problems with transportation access. While I would agree that this is an example of bad (or no) planning, I must also ask whether the affected Democrat US Representative and Senators, not to mention the tree-huggers, are using the traffic issues as an excuse to block the use of the office complex so as to create impediments to, or show disrespect for, the US military. Where were they when the building was still in its planning stages? All too often, Democrat politicians – and tree-huggers – have refused to acknowledge that the US has foreign enemies, that we need a military to deter aggression, and that the military needs resources in order to do its job.

Gridlock – both traffic and governmental

$1 billion BRAC mistake: Traffic upends plans for 6400-person facility

…Virtually all studies done so far show that surrounding roads — even after planned expansions are completed — cannot accommodate the traffic expected to stream in and out of the Mark Center facility each day. One approach proposed by the Army, which leads the project, would construct a large ramp linking the highway and the building — but it would affect a nearby nature reserve, which the local community rejects.

With no obvious solutions in sight, a battle has erupted on Capitol Hill and the fate of the building lies in limbo, even as the Army puts finishing touches on the facility and pays for construction projects to expand nearby roads and intersections.

“A building of this size — with no access to [Washington’s mass transit system] Metro — should never have been considered at this location,” said Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., who represents the district where the building — and anticipated traffic catastrophe — is located. “With one year until 6,400 people are slated to begin commuting to the Mark Center, we need to act quickly to minimize the negative impact for Northern Virginia’s roads, businesses and neighborhoods.”

Moran authored a provision in the House-passed 2011 Defense authorization bill that would limit parking spaces at the new facility to 1,000 — effectively choking plans to fully open the building — until a viable transportation plan is hatched that all parties can agree on. Affected employees would remain at their current leased offices throughout Northern Virginia until then. Virginia’s two Democratic senators — Jim Webb and John Warner — offered similar amendments to the Senate’s version of the bill, but they have yet to be voted on…

Read the rest.