Riders Demand Action As
Silver Spring Transit Center Reaches
Not-So “Sweet Sixteen”
Press release issued April 23, 2013
On the day the long-delayed Silver Spring Transit Center celebrates its not-so “Sweet Sixteen,” the Action Committee for Transit is demanding a rapid resolution of the bus facility's construction problems. Members of the group are leafleting this morning at the Silver Spring Metro station, asking riders to write to the County Council.
Sixteen years ago today, on April 23, 1997, County Executive Doug Duncan announced that the transit center would be finished by the end of 1998. The project then languished for nine years while Mr. Duncan tried to find someone else to pay for it. Once state and federal money was finally lined up, the county and its contractors thoroughly messed up the construction project.
A full chronology of the transit center's history is available on ACT's website.
Mariana Taitano, president of the Northwood High School freshman class, is joining the leafleters from 6:30 to 7:00 am, dressed as a Sweet Sixteen.
Mariana Taitano says “I wasn't even born when this started.
I sure hope it's finished before I graduate from high school.”
“We need the transit center fixed, we need it fixed quickly, and we need it to be safe and durable so we can depend on it for the next 50 years,” said ACT president Tina Slater. “Silver Spring has already waited much too long for this essential facility.”
The leaflet distributed this morning is based on ACT member Darian Unger's comments at a town hall meeting last month. Unger, a Silver Spring resident, pointed out that the transit center has taken longer to build than the Eiffel Tower, the Pentagon, and the Empire State Building. “This is beyond ridiculous,” he said.