Federal Funding of Transportation Improvements in BRAC Cases

TRB Special Report 302: Federal Funding of Transportation Improvements in BRAC Cases explores federal funding of transportation improvements in Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) cases. The committee that produced the report concluded that traffic delays resulting from the BRAC decisions and short timeline for implementing the decisions will impose substantial costs on surrounding communities and may even be harmful to the military.

The report offers recommendations to mitigate the effects of BRAC for the near, short, and long term. Among its recommendations, the committee calls on Congress to consider a special appropriation or the allocation of uncommitted stimulus funds to address the most adverse transportation problems caused by additional military traffic from base realignments. The intent of these funds would be to initiate projects as soon as possible that would reduce the severity of congestion impacts within three years.

The committee also recommends creating new funding streams for transportation infrastructure, noting that the U.S. Department of Defense should accept more financial responsibility for transportation problems related to growth on military bases, just as private developers pay impact fees to pay the costs for improvements to access their sites. Communities that benefit economically from the presence of military bases should pay their share of needed transportation improvements as well.

A press release and four-page summary of this report are available online. 

A summary of the report as published in the March-April 2011 issue of the TR News is also available online.