
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) Northern Virginia has received what amounts to a three-year reprieve from a looming deadline to relocate up to 20,000 military jobs that some say will cause a traffic meltdown.
Since 2005, the region has been seeking to blunt the impact of the Pentagon's 2005 base realignment process. Up to 20,000 jobs are supposed to move by 2011 from the region's inner suburbs to military bases such as Fort Belvoir farther on the region's outskirts.
Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., announced Tuesday that Defense Department agencies in the region will be allowed to lease office space in their existing locations through September 2014.
Moran said most agencies will take advantage of the extension and delay their move. That will give the region more time to try and put needed transportation improvements in place.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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