Stafford, Va. — There won’t be an influx of new students and traffic because of BRAC in Prince William and Stafford counties.
That’s the word from Stafford’s BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) Coordinator Tom Ramora, who said many of the 2,000 federal workers that were supposed to transfer to Quanitco for the move have already done so, and despite fears of major traffic congestion, conditions hasn’t gotten worse.
“There appears to be no data to suggest that massive numbers of school children are entering [the Prince William and Stafford] school districts,” said Ramora. The reason: many federal employees affected by BRAC chose not to move as far south as Prince William and Stafford opting to stay in more urbanized areas. Others already live in rural areas and decided not to move to the suburban Potomac Communities.
“You can see that people are not coming from Texas, they’re not coming from California, they’re by in large already in the region, they’re just driving to a different area go to go to work. Some people are just driving the other way, especially the people [who live south of Washintgon] who drove into the District every day, frankly, now they have a better drive,” said Ramora.
Transportation improvements to U.S. 1 and Russell Road have long been the focus of the Quantico Growth Management Committee, who work to aquire $800,000 in federal money to widen U.S. 1 from four to six lanes from Triangle to Boswell’s Corner. That project is moving closer to the construction phase, said Ramora.
For years some have feared BRAC workers could choose not to move the area despite local businesses best efforts to convince them otherwise.
More than 20,000 federal workers are slated to be moved to Fort Belvoir and Alexandria’s Mark Center on Interstate 395 by September, in addition to the workers headed to Quantico.
