Transit Riders Demand Answers
On Anniversary of Silver Spring Transit Center Debacle
Press release issued January 9, 2013
The Jan. 9 anniversary of the public revelation of bad concrete at the Silver Spring Transit Center was marked with a call for public accountability from the Action Committee for Transit. The Montgomery County transit riders group is holding an 11:00 am press conference in front of the Silver Spring Metro station to demand an open meeting to provide answers on the status of this long-delayed project.
“Transit riders are sick and tired of this project's long history of delays,” said ACT president Tina Slater. “It's now more than 15 years since Doug Duncan promised us that the transit center would be finished in 1998. Since then there have been three groundbreakings and countless promises, while a work of architecture designed to celebrate transit has shriveled into a bare concrete deck. It's time for answers - not more excuses and more postponements.”
“When I was in fourth grade and living in downtown Silver Spring, we were promised the transit center would be finished in 20 months,” added ACT's land use chair Dan Reed, who recently received a Master's degree in city planning. “How much longer must we wait?”
Dan Reed in 1995, when work on the Transit Center began.
(For this image in high resolution, click here.)
At today's event, ACT is renewing its call for the County Council to call a session where the public can get answers about when the new bus terminal will open and why it is taking so long. The concrete problems were made public on Jan. 9, 2012. After six months went by, the transit riders group asked the Council to hold a public meeting on the topic. County officials then said that a public meeting was impossible because litigation was likely. But now we are told that the county does not plan a lawsuit. “There's no longer any excuse for keeping the facts from the public,” Slater said.