Reports: More Issues with the Silver Spring Transit Center

Structural issues with the Silver Spring Transit Center may extend beyond the thickness of concrete, Montgomery County Councilman Roger Berliner told NBC4 Monday.

More than two years delayed and $80 million over budget, the $112 million project has not opened because county officials alleged that the concrete was not poured properly—a charge the project's builder denies.

"There are more issues unfortunately than just the thickness of the concrete. We are talking about pillars," Berliner, chairman of the council's committee on transportation, infrastructure, energy and environment, told NBC4. "We are talking about a number of things that weren't done the way they should have been done in the first instance." 

Read more about the Silver Spring Transit Center. 

A “higher than expected occurrence of cracking” was observed in some of the three-tier structure’s concrete last September. County officials said cracking is normal, but the “extent of the cracking and the nature of the cracking” made the county hire an outside firm, KCE Engineering, to create a full study of the cracks and what should be done to fix them.

KCE's report will be delivered to the council in a closed session next week. The report, which is four months late, is expected to contain details of other problems, the The Washington Post reported.

Contractor Foulger-Pratt denied that cracks in the concrete made the structure unsafe. The company filed a Notice of Delay in January alleging that county officials are responsible for delaying the opening.

"The building is safe—our engineers have concluded that, the county engineers have concluded that," Bryant Foulger, a principal at Foulger-Pratt, told Patch in February. "It’s just a matter of addressing some of these county concerns about what they want to do and what they want us to do."

A representative from the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. 

The Silver Spring Transit Center will create space for taxis, a Kiss and Ride drop-off area for cars and a network of buses near the Silver Spring Metro and MARC stations. The center is scheduled to open in late summer 2013.