Is it possible to fix a lemon without expansion joints?

More than a year ago KCE and WMATA’s engineers reported that the Silver Spring Transit Center doesn’t have expansion/contraction joints. WMATA’s design and construction standards, to which the SSTC was supposed to have been designed and built, require expansion/contraction joints be spaced no more than 100 feet apart. The 315 ft. by 580 ft. SSTC has none.

WMATA’s engineers warn that the SSTC’s complete lack of expansion/contraction joints, along with other serious flaws, will make the SSTC expensive to operate and maintain. They further warn that the requirement for the SSTC to have a 50 yr. service life is in jeopardy because of the SSTC’s complete lack of expansion/contraction joints and other serious design and construction flaws.

While Montgomery County’s engineers attribute the SSTC’s severe cracking to a variety of causes (shear, torsion, voids, etc.), I believe that the SSTC’s complete lack of expansion/contraction joints is a more likely explanation. Huge stresses can result from temperature changes. Large water lines break in freezing weather; concrete roads without properly functioning expansion joints buckle when it gets hot.

Is it possible to retrofit expansion/contraction joints spaced no more than 100 feet apart into an existing 315 ft. by 580 ft. concrete building that has none? If there is, then Montgomery County should tell us, the public, who paid and are paying for the SSTC and its “repairs”, exactly how they intend to retrofit expansion/contraction joints spaced every 100 feet or less into the joint-less SSTC. If Montgomery County is unable to explain how it intends to “fix” the SSTC’s complete lack of expansion/contraction joints, then the answer is clear: the SSTC is, and always will be, a lemon that will be expensive to operate and maintain--and, a possible threat to public safety.  

We, the public, deserve better. We don't deserve the existing lemon SSTC that we paid and are paying more than retail for. We deserve a refund..