When you first hear the term BRAC, you aren?t sure if it?s the sound you make after too many crabs and too much beer or one of the Cartoon Network?s oddball characters. (That one?s Brak.)
BRAC means a lot more to Marylanders. Officially, it?s the Base Realignment and Closure process. In civilian terms, the Department of Defense is moving thousands of military personnel from one base to another ? consolidating them so the military functions better.
If you drive, rent, own a house or pay taxes, that realignment will impact your life. Thousands of jobs and personnel are coming to Maryland with new residents and more traffic, bringing a host of problems and opportunities. Up to 60,000 new jobs are coming ? more jobs than the 2000 population of any Maryland city other than Baltimore.
The Fort Meade area alone could add 22,000 new jobs, “7,700 schoolchildren and $61 million in construction,” according to an April Washington Post report.
The Examiner?s Matthew Santoni reports that Harford County will see similar growth.
“Approximately $1 billion worth of new office space will have to be built along the Interstate 95 and state Route 40 corridors to accommodate an estimated 10,000 new off-base jobs,” he said.
One report says we?ll need 25,000 new homes to handle it all.
Now have I got your attention?
Are we ready for it? The answer is, obviously, no.
We can?t handle the growth we have now in the Baltimore/Washington area. If you have any doubts about how we handle growth, hop on I-95 south to Washington some morning at rush hour. Or Route 29. Or 295.
BRAC promises more of the same.
According to the Howard County BRAC office, “The region will benefit from the positive economic impact of BRAC.” (The fact that there is a Howard County BRAC office should be a big hint how important this is.) Even it admits there will “be challenges as we plan for potential increases in infrastructure requirements.”
No kidding. In one word ? roads. They can?t handle the traffic we have now. Aside from D.C.?s Metro system, state mass transit is a joke. And the MARC line is more like the punch line.
State planners are trying to figure out what roads and more are needed to accommodate our own population explosion, but that?s not enough. Businesses need to get involved as well.
Employers will have to encourage telecommuting and carpooling. Private companies should explore offering small-scale bus service. And we can?t just drop 25,000 new homes down and continue the overgrowth of our area. Businesses need to act responsibly and not just ram more density down our throats.
If base realignment is to work, Marylanders will have to realign their thinking about the future. Business can help. There are at least 60,000 reasons to try.
Dan Gainor is The Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow at the Media Research Center?s Business & Media Institute, a career journalist and media commentator. He can be reached at [email protected].
