Everyone who commutes in northern Virginia has long been aware of the monolith that DOD planned to build in the Mark Center area to house 5,000 employees as a result of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC). Personally, I've been dreading it, especially knowing that no measures have been taken to adjust the roads surrounding this monstrosity in order to BRAC-commodate the huge influx of traffic (or "Braffic," as I now refer to it).
Even though they're not dumping all 5,000 BRAC-ers on us at once, Braffic is already having an impact on my daily commute. Until a couple of weeks ago, I was able to leave my home in the City of Fairfax at 6a.m. and reach my office in Pentagon City in 30 minutes via Route 50 and Route 27. I purposely changed to an earlier work schedule to try to avoide arriving at work every day stressed out and pissed off because of the traffic. Now the commute has increased to 40 minutes. I'm either seeing BRAC-ers heading to the Mark Center via the back way, or I'm seeing folks who used to take I-395 and are now avoiding that Braffic cesspool all together. And it's just the beginning! I do not see myself ever becoming fully BRACclimated to this.
