Feb. 6, 2009
Q: Traffic going out Womble Gate was backed up past the tunnel next to the USS George Washington Jan. 13. I called Womble Gate and politely requested a patrolman be sent to direct traffic left out the gate, a standard policy for the four years I’ve been here. Maybe once a quarter this function gets missed and traffic backs up. Signs at the street and pleas to the community have proven ineffective and one person wanting to go straight ruins it for everybody. It is quite easy to know when there is or isn’t a patrolman performing this function by looking how far the traffic is backed up. I’ve thought the fine people at the gate have no way of knowing how far traffic has backed up, so often I call and most of the time a patrolman is sent to redirect and traffic speeds up. This is outstanding. However, on this day traffic did not speed up and the same thing happened the following day. The next day I called the security office directly and was told that the previous night a meeting was held and it was decided to cancel this long standing policy. I want to apologize to all of Yokosuka that my phone call was the source that got this policy cancelled. I’m appealing to the base commander to have this re-evaluated. This simple act saves at least 30 minutes of traffic time. The reason stated is that off base starts after the yellow line and security has no jurisdiction to direct traffic there.

A: Thank you for your concerns. We are re-evaluating Womble Gate policy issue. We are unable to go past the yellow line due to jurisdictional issues, and with the design of the gate, it becomes a safety issue for the patrolmen, vehicles and pedestrian traffic leaving the base.