The SSTC’s design and construction flaws are serious. The fact that KCE’s report blames the SSTC’s serious flaws on the builder’s, the engineer’s and the concrete inspector/tester’s “errors and omissions” is troubling. Equally troubling for me is the fact that the SSTC was almost complete when the SSTC’s serious flaws came to the public’s attention. Who was “minding the store”? Anyone who is involved in construction, particularly those who have been involved in construction for more than 50 years, knows the importance of “minding the store”.
As disturbing as KCE’s report was to me, the events of the past 15 months since the KCE report became public have been equally disturbing. Public statements by public officials and others involved in the aftermath of KCE’s March 15, 2013 report have been less than forthright at best and downright deceitful at worst.
I find the often repeated public statements of David Dise (director of the Montgomery County Department of General Services) and others who have made public statements about the SSTC’s safety particularly disturbing. Mr. Dise has been quoted repeatedly in the news media as saying “The SSTC will absolutely be safe". The fact is that neither Mr. Dise, nor anyone else, knows that the SSTC will be safe. His statement, along with those of others regarding the SSTC’s safety, is his opinion. It cannot be proven that the SSTC will be safe; and, IMHO, for public officials and others to make such public statements is irresponsible at best and outright deceitful at worst.
Equally disturbing for me to the public statements of those involved in the design and construction of the SSTC and its aftermath has been the lack of response by the Federal Transit Administration, the Maryland Transit Administration, and others whose responsibilities include protecting the public’s interests. The news media itself (print, TV, radio, internet) have done a particularly poor job in covering this story. The news media prides itself in its supposed “in-depth reporting” and “probing questions”. For the most part, I’ve seen none of that here; the news media have mostly published the public statements of those involved in the SSTC aftermath without “in-depth reporting” and without asking “probing questions”.
I’ve found that unless you’re a public official or a member of the news media that it’s next-to-impossible to be heard on important issues such as serious flaws with the Silver Spring Transit Center. Search “Silver Spring Transit Center” on the internet and most of what you’ll find are news media reports and press releases and public statements from government officials on their websites. What’s largely missing is the other side of the story.
I don’t know how all of this will turn out. Will Montgomery County press ahead with its “repairs” to the SSTC without input from the public? It appears that way. Montgomery County hasn’t held public meetings to answer the public’s questions or obtain their comments on the public record. Will WMATA accept the seriously flawed SSTC? Will there be an independent investigation into why and how this happened? Is the fact that design and construction of the SSTC is a public-private partnership partly to blame? Will the public ever know the “other” side of the story? It appears to me that they will not; and, that shocks and saddens me.
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