MORE Problems at Silver Spring Transit Center

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The Davy Crockett

The Davy Crockett

Engineer
Joined
Jan 3, 2011
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It is being reported that there are more problems at the Silver Spring, Maryland Transit Center. The project is already over two years behind schedule and at least $80,000,000.00 over budget. Now there are concerns over the "long term durability of the building, not its safety" according to Montgomery County Council member Roger Berliner, though the details are deliberately vague at this point, according to this article.
 
The fiasco continues. With no end in site or on site. They should just start over at this point, but adjacent. Then leave the current mess 'as is' - and make it the newest, if not most expensive, monument/public art in the DC area, giving it the name:

"Monu-mental Engineering Failure" :ph34r:

:p

Am I glad I left that neck of the woods alligator swamp in 2009. :)
 
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The Greater Greater Washington blog has an entry today on the report on the mess with the Silver Spring Transit Center. The finger pointing is at the engineering design firm, the contractor who built it, and the contractor who was supposed to provide the independent inspection oversight. The lawyers will make money off of the lawsuits and legal actions as everyone involved tries to shift the blame to someone else. The engineering review says the construction shortcomings are fixable, but correction work is likely to be stalled until the financial and legal liabilities are resolved.

The only bright spot is that the problems with the Transit Center should be resolved by the time the Purple Line is built and opens - in 8-10 years if that project can stay on schedule. :eek:
 
This hick from the sticks edited a prior post because

The DC METRO - political - graft - blundering --

Not news.

(I promise I will not slander the democratically elected officials of the DC and the Congress ever again)
 
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Another chapter in the saga of the Silver Spring Transit center. After complaining rather loudly about how badly they were being treated by the county, the main construction contractor appears to have folded and will be paying for repair work. Washington Post article on the latest: Repairs of Silver Spring transit hub will start in late summer, at best. Excerpt:

Extensive repair work on the Silver Spring Transit Center will not begin until late summer at the earliest, and an estimated date for opening the long-delayed bus-and-train hub remains unclear, Montgomery County officials said Monday.

A county spokesman also said that no taxpayer money will be spent on the fixes, which will include ripping out two flawed sections of the center’s second floor. The cost — yet to be determined — will be borne by the project’s design and construction contractors, said Patrick Lacefield, spokesman for County Executive Isiah Leggett (D).
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If they have not reached a settlement on the specific amounts, I would expect there will be a lot of negotiations between the major contractors on who pays for how much. Maybe a mid or late 2014 opening?

Meanwhile, GGW has posted renderings of several light rail Purple Line stations including the proposed design for the station to go next to the Silver Spring transit center. The Purple Line website has links here to the Silver Spriing station design. That is one fancy looking elevated light rail stop.
 
The Davy Crockett said:
afigg said:
Meanwhile, GGW has posted renderings of several light rail Purple Line stations including the proposed design for the station to go next to the Silver Spring transit center. The Purple Line website has links here to the Silver Spriing station design. That is one fancy looking elevated light rail stop.
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Maybe it was designed by the group who created Arlington County's $1,000,000.00 bus stop? :eek:

:giggle:
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I have not followed the story of the $1 million state of the art bus / future streetcar stop that closely, but I gather that this was the prototype with design and engineering costs rolled up into the pricetag of the 1st stop. The rest of the stops are supposed to be less expensive, but the actual costs are more than a little muddled in the news reports. Which I read as some CYA going on. Since the high cost bus/streetcar stop is not a hit, presumably they will rethink the design & frills and cut costs on the subsequent stops. Don't want to spend that much of the streetcar project funds on curb side level boarding stops.
The Purple Line is designed as a higher end light rail system with dedicated ROW and a fair amount of grade separation. The Silver Spring Purple Lime station will be on elevated tracks, so it will cost a whole lot more than a million dollars to build. The good news for transit in the DC metro region is that Phase 1 of the Metro Silver Line is now about 90% complete.
 
The SIlver Spring Transit centER (Maybe it should be called the "Twisted SISTER?) fiasco continues...

From WTOP:

WMATA's Tom Robinson last month said of the center, "The building continues to move and continues to crack." Repairs to the cracks in the concrete are underway, but WMATA wants something called a slot stress test to be done before it will take ownership of the project.But David Dise, director of general services for the county wrote in an update on repairs this week that the slot stress test would be "of no value."

Asked for comment, a spokesman for WMATA said the agency hasn't had a chance to review the letter.

At a recent hearing, WMATA officials told the county council the questions they had about the transit center had to do with durability, not safety. [emphasis added]
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Love the reference to Twisted Sister. And does this mean We're Not Going to Take It Anymore?
 
With all the other delayed transit related fiascos projects going on in just the DC region alone (Purple Line, Silver Line, DC Streetcar, Arlington Steetcar, Alexandria BRT, to name a few off the top of my head) I was surprised that the last time the fiasco of all DC area transit fiascos - the "Twisted Sister" - had activity in its thread was August of last year!

The monster may have been keeping a low profile, but like a twenty foot alligator lazing amongst the lily pads that is starting to move, it looks like the beast could get some attention and it could show its teeth in the upcoming election for the job of County Executive in Montgomery County, MD.

Here are a couple of articles that have appeared in the last couple of weeks:

First, from WTOP on April 22, 2014: Silver Spring Transit Center opening could slip into 2015

From the article:

...The facility's completion, already way behind schedule, could slip into early next year.

Disagreement remains over whether the center's interior concrete beams must be reinforced against torsion, or twisting, from the weight of heavy buses.

"If the stress and torsion issues with the beams do not have to be addressed, we're looking at some time in the fall. If those have to be addressed, we're looking at some time towards the beginning of next year," says Montgomery County Council Chairman Craig Rice.

Cost estimates for the facility have grown from $26 million to $120 million.

"Our taxpayers that wonder, 'Is this going to cost some additional money?,' the commitment from the county executive in saying 'This is not going to cost additional dollars' ... is really important as well," Rice says.

He adds that it's important to resolve all questions about quality and safety in the construction of the transit center.

"What we want to do is to make sure that we open a safe facility," Rice says.
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And from WTOP today (4/30/14): New analysis finds more problems with Silver Spring Transit Center

From the article:

...a new independent analysis says that the cracks in the concrete at the center are more of a problem than originally thought.

Montgomery County officials had been told repeatedly that the cracks in the concrete at the troubled Silver Spring Transit Center were not a safety concern, but the latest analysis, by Norman Augustine, a former Lockheed Martin executive, says that without repairs, concrete could fail, putting people at risk.

The report was requested by County Executive Isiah "Ike" Leggett, who has taken a lot of criticism over the problems at the center.

County Council member Phil Andrews, a member of the committee overseeing the transit center, says the Augustine report isn't the first one to say that repairs need to be made "now, not some time later," before it's turned over to Metro.

He says that 240 buses an hour go through the transit center, and that puts "a lot of stress on the concrete."

"There's no way the county can go forward and let there be a risk of falling concrete," Andrews says.

Leggett administration officials have defended the overruns and delays, saying that projects such as the Arts Center at Strathmore had similar issues.

Andrews says Strathmore had delays and overruns, but it was a different case.

"There was no issue of safety with Strathmore; there was no issue of whether the building would actually work. ... No comparison."

Andrews and former county executive Dave Duncan are running against Leggett for the executive's job; the three candidates will face off at a debate Wednesday night.
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Fix it now? :unsure: BEFORE it is turned over to Metro? :blink: Just give it a new set of tires, a wash, polish and vac, plus a tune up, and pass the lemon, er thing, off to someone else! :rolleyes: Isn't that the American way? :huh:
 
The Davy Crockett said:
With all the other delayed transit related fiascos projects going on in just the DC region alone (Purple Line, Silver Line, DC Streetcar, Arlington Steetcar, Alexandria BRT, to name a few off the top of my head) I was surprised that the last time the fiasco of all DC area transit fiascos - the "Twisted Sister" - had activity in its thread was August of last year!

The monster may have been keeping a low profile, but like a twenty foot alligator lazing amongst the lily pads that is starting to move, it looks like the beast could get some attention and it could show its teeth in the upcoming election for the job of County Executive in Montgomery County, MD.
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I don't why you are including the Purple Line, Arlington Streetcar, Alexandria BRT among the delayed "fiascos". The construction contracts have not even been awarded or put out to bid for the Purple Line.
If by the Arlington Streetcar, you mean the Columbia Pike Streetcar, that has not started or been fully funded yet either. Or if you mean the Crystal City - Potomac Yard Transitway, they have been making progress on building the transitway lanes and are supposed to start bus service on it later this year.

If I may rank the transit screw-ups and delay in the DC area, I would rank them as follows:

#1. Silver Spring Transit Center. Major league Charlie Foxtrot by the contractors and their bond holders who are going to have to pay up big time.

#2. DC Streetcar. We eventually will have the 22 mile priority system up and running, but good grief, it has not been well managed.

#3. Silver Line Phase 1. The primary contractor and Alstom fumbled the ball. They will recover the ball, but should not have dropped the ball in the first place.
 
I had to go a long ways back to find this old thread.

The Washington Post is reporting that Spring is turning into Fall, with a now projected opening of late Summer or early Fall.

Maybe Montgomery County is shooting for a full decade of construction on this fiasco, as preliminary work began in the Fall of 2006?

Makes me so mad I see Red! ...but no Purple. At least not in the foreseeable future.

Maybe consultants need to be hired for another study?
 
I hope you are sitting down... :p

On August 20, 2015 the Montgomery County Department of General Incompetence Services issued the Item Completion Notice for this baby of difficult birth. WMATA now has 10 days from the issuance of the notice to accept or reject this poor, but way over budget and completion date, problem child. Given WMATA's troubles of late, this seems like a match made in Heaven, or Hell.... We shall see.

To paraphrase the letter, MOCO DGS hopes that given all the 'collaboration' between the two, MOCO DGS "trust that WMATA's response to this... ...will allow the facility to be open for use by the public as soon as possible with both Metro and RideOn buses operating, as scheduled. :huh:

I wonder which revised schedule they are referring to? :)

Actually, it is the end period of the latest revised schedule - which means by the end of September of this year. I guess, once in use, we will find out if all the retrofitting worked or not.
 
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The Davy Crockett said:
Actually, it is the end period of the latest revised schedule - which means by the end of September of this year. I guess, once in use, we will find out if all the retrofitting worked or not.
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WMATA issued a press release last week that the target opening date was Saturday, September 20. I doubt that WMATA would put out a specific date unless they were confident it would be met. Of course, given the history of the Silver Spring Transit Center, wouldn't consider the date a sure thing.

Metro plans to accept Silver Spring Transit Center from Montgomery County
 
It seems that Metro and Montgomery Co. have settled their differences. They are jointly suing the contractors who designed, built and inspected this five year late and $50,000,000.00 over budget fiasco for $166,000,000.00.

One of the contractors has responded by saying that the complaint is overblown and incorrect; that the lawsuit is without merit and that they will defend themselves.

I wonder how many decades the legal aftermath of this mess will drag out! :rolleyes:
 
Its all over but the suing! :p

While I've not been there to actually see for myself, but after seven long years of displacement of the bus bays, disruption to pedestrian flow, cost overruns, incredible incompetence, etc., etc., IT IS FINALLY OPEN! :eek: :eek: :eek:
 

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