Getting there

It seems highly unlikely that nobody pointed this out, but surely if they had we wouldn't be in this situation now. Ladies and gentlemen, lest you think your military incessantly plans everything to the nth degree, I present the following for your consideration.

MacDill AFB has three road entries. Actually, there are four, but the fourth is only for construction and commercial vehicles, so it doesn't count. The three gates are at Dale Mabry, MacDill, and Bayshore.
Some time ago, I believe it was last spring, the powers that be decided to close MacDill except at the morning and evening rush hours, as it was a strain on the cops to keep the various security apparati manned all day. Then, I believe this winter, the power decided to stop opening MacDill during the morning rush as well; thus the base functionally has only two gates open all day, except during the evening rush home.

Of course, the evening rush is longer and more disparate than the morning rush, as I think is true everywhere. We all have to be at work at the same time, but we leave as soon as we can or as late as we must. So if anything they should be opening the MacDill gate in the mornings and not the evenings, but oh well.

Dale Mabry has two lanes in and two lanes out; Bayshore has one of each. During the morning rush, Mabry goes to three lanes in and one out, while Bayshore has two in and no way out. This is good and convenient. But lately Mabry has been under construction, to make the entry more efficient and secure. This is also good, but the construction has been, as you'd expect for a government job, ungodly slow. Right now, they're one lane in and one out, and they don't exchange lanes at rush hour. As you might expect, traffic backs up badly at both gates in the morning. Though I live 9 miles from work and have made the commute in as little as 14 minutes (at 4'30 in the morning), I frequently am in the car for 35 minutes in the mornings because of the lines. This is idiocy, but the little I can do about it (go to work late) would involve sacrificing my already spotty reputation at work.

What you might not expet is the crush at lunchtime. Because there are two lanes in and two out, and because thousands of people are trying to flee the base for lunch (dining options on base are limited and unhealthy), there are significant backups at both gates coming and going. At Bayshore, you'll often wait longer to get on base at 1 pm than you would during the morning rush hour. This can turn a leisurely 45-minute lunch at Ciccio & Tony's into a 90 minute affair.

This is absurd, and something should be done. If the leadership ever took lunch off base something would be done about it, and fast. As it is, we need to open that third gate up at lunch time, as well as at the morning rush.

But worse is what they did to us today. Today, for God only knows what possible reason, construction was started 50 yards inside the Bayshore gate, and extended all the way across the road. Bayshore was entirely blocked to both in and out traffic for over six hours, including the lunchtime rush. All traffic was funnelled to the two now seriously inadequate lanes at Dale Mabry.

What type of moron approves the idea of having every base gate either closed or under construction at the same time? Isn't traffic flow supposed to be part of safety and security? And how freakin' hard would it have been to open MacDill if Bayshore was going to be closed? Who the hell is running this show?