David Dise, Director,
Department of General Services at Montgomery County, MD, says
“It (the Silver Spring Transit
Center) will absolutely be safe”.
Roger Berliner, Montgomery County Councilman and Chairman of the County's Transportation Committee, says that "WMATA has no less responsibility than our county with respect to the current state of affairs".
Spin. Pure spin.
Mr. Dise doesn't KNOW that the SSTC "will be absolutely safe". And, apparently the media doesn't know the difference between a fact and an opinion. The FACT is that we don't know how many errors and omissions are hidden beneath the SSTC's cracked, thin (slabs more than an inch less thick than what they're supposed to be), under-reinforced, understrength, overstressed and hardened concrete. And, as far as Mr. Dise's opinion is concerned, he can hardly be considered impartial.
Likewise, Mr. Berliner's statement that "WMATA has no less responsibility than our county with respect to the current state of affairs" goes largely unchallenged by media and the public, who should know better. Didn’t Montgomery County chose the engineer, the contractor and the concrete inspection/testing firm? Didn’t Montgomery County have a fulltime, onsite construction management team of County employees on the job during construction? Didn’t Montgomery County issue the building permits? Doesn’t Montgomery County have the responsibility to inspect projects in its jurisdiction during construction? Isn't Montgomery County owner-of-record for the facility? For Mr. Berliner to suggest that WMATA "has no less responsibility than our county with respect to the current state of affairs" is patently absurd. But, apparently neither the media nor the public think so; or, they don't care.
"You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."
Abraham Lincoln
And here's another example of "pure spin" from Pashaspop (note the parts about "focused on the deck fix" and about getting the design calculations):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/silver-spring-transit-center-will-require-additional-repairs-county-says/2013/11/19/5fe73b1a-514b-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_allComments.html
"Pashaspop wrote:
11/21/2013 11:10 AM EST
How much worse can this possibly get. Now we are told that 250 beams and girders need strengthening. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY underdesigned beams and girders!
Well with last week's fix, if you are going to add 2 inches of Latex Modified Concrete to the deck to cover, but not fix, the deck cracks, you have just added 25 psf to the structure dead load and decreased the available live load capacity (for the buses) by a similar amount, without strengthening anything. Better had strengthen the entire structural framing given the likely defects found everywhere else.
And the MoCo excuse that we really didn't know about this because we were focused on the deck fix. Pathetic. Read the KCE report, it's all there. KCE Principal Allyn Killsheimer is hardly known as a 'shrinking violet'. He would have explained the problem fully in no uncertain terms. Couldn't get the Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) design calculations until late October, six months after asking for them. What! It takes one day to photocopy them, one day to put in 3-ring binders, and one day to ship with a nice cover letter. MoCo have PB under contract and can order them up at once. Why were they not submitted with the design documents for the record/permitting anyway?
As a Federal/MD/MoCo taxpayer I am appalled at the attitudes and behaviors alround. And we taxpayers are still not off the hook, despite the MoCo Council comments to the contrary. Who is paying/going to pay for the specialist legal advice needed now. Both contractor Foulger Pratt and designer PB intend to fight claims with MD/MoCo. Will any settlement cover our full costs and will it be conducted in public view. Unlikely, so we will continue paying and likely stuck with a future bill.
High time for the Feds to step in. In fact where are they since half the money is theirs.
Congress goes on about stopping 'waste, fraud and abuse', well here is a great example 200 yards from DC. Congressman Van Hollen?"