Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC).

Harford County is seeing the beginnings of "Base Realignment and Closure" (BRAC). BRAC is expected to bring 60,000 new jobs and 28,000 new households to Maryland, with a vast majority of those being located in Harford County to supply Aberdeen Proving Grounds (APG). BRAC has been in play for over three years now, and Harford County is just now beginning to upgrade its roadways. The roadways need to be improved in order to handle the added traffic flow, but waiting until a year before BRAC takes full effect has caused a traffic nightmare for Harford County residents. We now need to ensure these roadway projects stay fully funded so that we can continue to improve our infrastructure. A large portion of employees from APG will be living in Cecil County as well as Delaware. Why have we not yet begun to improve the MARC train line? Adding a strong commuter rail line to Cecil County and Delaware will ease some of the traffic concerns for Harford County residents. The new high schools being built in Edgewood and Bel Air are long overdue. On the outside, it appears they will be better equipped to handle the influx of students they are about to see; but in reality, they are only catching up to where they needed to be ten years ago. This will be a long uphill battle, and in Annapolis, I will fight for state and federal funding to ensure BRAC is as smooth a transition as possible for the residents of Harford and Cecil Counties.