dancing around the issue

More than a year ago it was reported that the Silver Spring Transit Center was built without any expansion joints. Standard construction practice requires expansion joints for structures exposed to temperature changes. Metro (WMATA) design and construction standards, to which the SSTC was supposed to have been designed and built, require expansion joints to be spaced no farther than 100 feet apart. The 315 ft. by 580 ft. SSTC has none.

Recently the report of an independent advisory committee to Montgomery County Executive Isaiah Leggett was released. This report fails to address the SSTC's lack of expansion joints as the probable source of its extensive cracking. It also fails to address remedies for the SSTC's lack of expansion joints. (Personally, I am unaware of how expansion joints can be retrofit into an existing concrete building.)

HUGE forces result from temperature changes. Large water mains break in freezing weather; roads buckle when it's hot. It's apparent to me that the extensive cracking in the SSTC has occurred because there are no expansion joints to relieve the SSTC of huge stresses caused by temperature changes.

How long will Montgomery County, its paid consultants and its independent advisors continue to dance around this issue?