While MoCo and its consultants and METRO argue about torsion, the obvious is being missed. No one is arguing that the SSTC is severely cracked and no one is arguing that the SSTC doesn’t have expansion joints. These facts are well documented in KCE’s report that was commissioned by Montgomery County and has been available for viewing and downloading on Montgomery County’s website for more than a year.
Concrete buildings aren’t supposed to crack from stem to stern like the SSTC has. That the SSTC has cracked extensively before it even opens, and fully loaded buses start rolling across its decks, is even more troubling. Standard construction practice requires expansion joints for structures exposed to temperature changes. METRO design and construction standards, to which the SSTC was supposed to have been designed and built, require that expansion joints be spaced no more than 100 feet apart. The 315 ft. by 580 ft. SSTC has none. It’s possible (likely?) that the severe cracking in the SSTC is caused by its total lack of expansion joints. The latex concrete overlay that has been proposed will not fix the underlying problem (lack of expansion joints).
Is all this discussion about torsion just a diversion?
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