Bully Montgomery County

The Silver Spring Transit Center waiting game - The Washington Post

MultiModal
8/1/2015 8:20 PM EDT

Does anyone on the editorial board actually ride the bus? Obviously not with this quote: "A new transit center there that would simplify their trips and provide direct access to Metrorail and MARC trains"
If they did they would know that the only reason our trips were more complicated is because they moved the buses out and up the street to build this hideous monstrosity so many years ago. Before our trips were simple. Now we will have to travel through a garage that is not only structurally compromised, but according to Metro the transit center “already is cracking at an abnormal rate due to construction and design deficiencies.” The reason there are cracks is because there are no expansion joints which were required by Metro. Why shouldn't Metro ask for money in escrow for future repairs? That's not a shakedown. That's an insurance policy because it will continue to crack.

But the Post doesn't really care about the riders and they are trying to bury those facts. They're more interested in PR for those who screwed it up. Was this written by Mr. Baumann? Sure sounds like it.


peretired
3:22 AM EDT

Also, not long after KCE's March 15, 2013 structural evaluation report for the SSTC became public, WMATA's engineers appeared before Montgomery County's council, where Roger Berliner (engineering and construction expert?) accused WMATA of being disingenuous, reneging on their agreement to operate the transit center. Montgomery County has continued to bully WMATA about their concerns, most recently WMATA's interim general manager Jack Requa.

The fact is that anyone who reads even the executive summaries of KCE's and WMATA's reports, both of which are on Montgomery County's website, knows that the SSTC is seriously flawed. Montgomery County's bullying WMATA may get WMATA to back down, but it won't make the serious design and construction flaws go away. As long as it gets hot in the summer and cold in the winter, the SSTC will continue to crack, and patron and non-patron taxpayers alike will foot the bill. (Most of the funding for the SSTC is federal.)

Add taxpayers to the list of those that Montgomery County, WMATA and the media don't care about.

Silver Spring Transit Center
Paul S. Sarbanes Transit Center
Montgomery County MD
public-private partnership
WMATA
Federal Transit Administration (FTA)
Maryland Transit Administration (MTA)
Purple Line
Gov. Hogan