Transitgate?

Everything’s “gone dark” at the Silver Spring Transit Center (a.k.a. Paul S. Sarbanes Transit Center). There hasn’t been any new news about what’s going on with the seriously-flawed SSTC for more than a month.

More than six months ago we learned that the yet-to-be-opened, WAY-over-budget, SSTC is seriously flawed—concrete cracks throughout, slabs more than an inch thinner than what construction drawings say that they should be (10 inches thick), missing reinforcement (some reinforcement missing entirely), shoddy construction, design errors, inspection errors, testing errors, poor oversight, etc.

For the past six months plus media have reported extensively on Montgomery County claims, WMATA claims, KCE and WDP claims (private firms hired by Montgomery County and WMATA), builder/contractor claims, engineer/designer claims, inspection/testing firm claims, etc. Now everything has “gone dark” for more than a month—no new news.

Is Montgomery County feeling the heat? Why won’t Montgomery County explain why they selected the builder/contractor, the engineer/designer and the concrete inspection/testing firm for the SSTC? Were political contributions part of the selection process? Why aren’t the media digging into these questions and reporting their findings? Since more than half of the funding for the SSTC are federal funds, we are ALL stakeholders in the severely-flawed, money pit, SSTC.

We know what happened with Watergate. Will the same happen with Transitgate? Where’s “Deep Throat” when you need him?