Is the Silver Spring Transit Center safe?

Since March 2013 when the KCE structural report for the Silver Spring Transit Center was made public, we've heard lots of opinions on the SSTC's safety. Most of them have come from those associated with the project--Montgomery County council and executive, county staff, the county's paid and unpaid consultants, etc. 

Most of the opinions have been from those with little or no qualifications in construction or structural engineering. News media (print, TV, radio, internet) have reported these opinions carte blanche without qualifying them as opinions (as opposed to facts) and without questioning the qualifications of those who make them. 

Most, if not all, of the reported opinions are that the SSTC is or will be safe. Few, if any, qualified experts in construction and engineering have said that the SSTC isn't safe. Here's one.

I don't believe that the SSTC is or will be safe for several reasons:

1. The KCE structural report
2. The SSTC's complete lack of expansion joints
3. Reports that "chunks of concrete" have fallen from the SSTC
4. the unknown

"Errors and omissions" cited in the March 15, 2013 KCE structural report are both serious and widespread:

• widespread cracking in slabs, beams, girders and columns 
  
• slabs more than an inch thinner than what they're supposed to be
• exposed reinforcement
• missing reinforcement
• understrength and overstressed concrete
• underdesigned beams
• no expansion joints
• etc.

One of the significant findings of the KCE report is that the SSTC has no expansion/contraction joints. 

Standard construction practice and WMATA design and construction standards require expansion/contraction joints in structures exposed to temperature changes. WMATA's design and construction standards, to which the SSTC was supposed to have been designed and constructed, require expansion/contraction joints to be placed no more than 100 feet apart. The 315 ft. by 580 ft. SSTC has none. 

A year or so ago a representative from Foulger Pratt was quoted as saying that the SSTC is like a "tightly wound snare drum". The analogy is a good one. The difference is that a tightly wound snare drum can be loosened, whereas a monolithic concrete structure with no expansion/contraction joints cannot. The SSTC will continue to crack even after "repairs" are complete. 

Several months ago it was reported that "chunks of concrete" have fallen from the SSTC. Needless to say, chunks of falling concrete are unsafe for those who may use the SSTC.

Is even a repaired SSTC worth the risk? I don't think so. The SSTC's known flaws are so serious and so numerous that, together with other flaws that may be hidden inside the SSTC's flawed concrete shell, I don't think that it's worth the risk to the public who may use it. 

One thing is for sure: that given the SSTC's numerous, severe flaws, the SSTC will be expensive to operate and to maintain. If the SSTC were to survive it's supposed 50 year service life, then it would be "throwing good money after bad".

Silver Spring Transit Center