Group is 'Sick and Tired' of Silver Spring Transit Center Delays

One year after Montgomery County officials announced that the concrete used to build the Silver Spring Transit Center was unevenly poured and would further delay the opening, a local transit advocacy group is calling for face time about the status of the project. 

“Transit riders are sick and tired of this project's long history of delays,” said Tina Slater, president of the Action Committee for Transit (ACT). “It's now more than 15 years since [former County Executive] Doug Duncan promised us that the transit center would be finished in 1998."

The $108 million project will create space for taxis, Kiss and Ride cars and a network of buses near the Silver Spring Metro and MARC stations. County officials said last October that the center would be open at the end of the summer 2013. 

Read more about the Silver Spring Transit Center. 

"It's time for answers—not more excuses and more postponements,” said Slater.

The group wants a public meeting with county officials about the status of the center, something they said they were denied last year because of possible litigation against the builders of the center. An article in the Gazette quoted County Executive Isiah Leggett as saying there will be no legal action on the part of the county. 

“There's no longer any excuse for keeping the facts from the public,” Slater said.

A “higher than expected occurrence of cracking” was observed in some of the structure’s concrete last September, David Dise, chief of the county's general services department, told a County Council committee in October. Dise 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 is expected to be complete this month, the Washington Examiner reports.