BRAC moves ahead; county’s priorities come into focus

County Executive Isiah Leggett received a five-page list of requests on Monday, to pass on to state officials, for projects to mitigate traffic around Bethesda’s National Naval Medical Center when it merges with Walter Reed Army Medical Center on the Rockville Pike base.

Residents fear unmitigated traffic could make Bethesda unsafe and inconvenient.

‘‘I think it’s fair to say the community is just about as frustrated as I’ve sort of seen a group of folks,” said John H. Carman, chairman of the county’s BRAC committee. ‘‘We don’t want to miss that opportunity to get our oar in the water.”

The Navy expects about 2,500 new employees on the base by 2011, plus a doubled outpatient load that would create 900,000 patient-related visits to the campus each year.

The county’s BRAC committee requested mass transit enhancements, more pedestrian and bicycle access, and improved intersections along Rockville Pike and Wisconsin Avenue, Connecticut Avenue and Old Georgetown Road, in its letter Monday.

But the funding source remained unclear.

‘‘Certain mitigations would take place on, or directly adjacent to, the NNMC campus. Therefore, the Department of Defense must assume responsibility for their completion,” read the letter to Leggett (D) signed by Carman.

Specific requests included a new east-side entrance to the Medical Center Metro station, enhanced Ride On bus service with satellite parking and shuttles, improved pedestrian islands and crosswalks on major roads nearby, a possible Beltway off-ramp directly onto the Navy Med campus and a host of transportation studies.

The committee asked for an improved Route 355 with turn lanes, entrances and pedestrian access to the Navy Med gates, with a separate security check for transit riders.

The letter also explained that Bethesda is a nexus for emergency response — with the National Institutes of Health, Navy Med and Suburban Hospital forming a disaster-preparedness partnership — and should get high priority.

‘‘It is essential that traffic move as smoothly as possible” in the area with ‘‘potential terrorist targets” like the NIH, the letter said.

Officials argued at the Planning Board last week that Montgomery County was handicapped in the appropriations process. The Navy has not released its environmental impact statement, the key document for traffic planning around the campus.

The Navy has shown its traffic research to county traffic planners but has not made the data publicly available.

The committee ‘‘can’t propose mitigation if you don’t know what you’re going to mitigate,” county BRAC coordinator Phil Alperson argued. ‘‘We don’t have an environmental impact statement to work off of, so we are kind of winging it.”

Alperson was pleased, however, that the Defense Department’s Office of Economic Adjustment gave a recent grant to the state that includes $500,000 toward a study of BRAC’s impact on Route 355.

The county’s largest request for federal transportation money now rests in the hands of federal lawmakers and President George W. Bush. The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives recently approved $4 million in federal transportation earmarks that would benefit Bethesda, but the appropriation must be approved by both houses and then survive a threatened presidential veto.

The county’s BRAC Web site that debuted this week has updates and further information about the BRAC process in Montgomery County. It is located at www.montgomerycountymd.gov⁄brctmpl.asp?url=⁄Content⁄EXEC⁄BRAC⁄index.asp.