ROCKVILLE, Md. – Once again, the completion date for the Silver Spring Transit Center has been pushed back, the repair costs have risen and Montgomery County officials are not happy.
At a Tuesday morning hearing, director of General Services for the county David Dise told the council the nearly $140 million project should be ready to turn over to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority by “sometime in April or May. Actually probably be late May, but certainly in the spring.”
Council President George Leventhal was customarily blunt when he addressed the man in charge of getting the Silver Spring Transit Center completed: “Mr Dise, a growing number of my constituents don’t believe anything you say anymore.”
Leventhal said he “vividly remembered” being told the transit center would be ready to open by the end of 2014. Directing his question to Dise, Leventhal said “What happened?”
“We missed the weather window,” Dise said.
A number of the needed repairs couldn’t be completed before cold weather set in delaying some final work, resulting in the springtime completion.
Leventhal said constituents felt “that the promises are covering up the fact that this is a structurally flawed building that ought to be torn down. We ought to just declare it a loss and give up.”
Although Leventhal doesn’t believe the building should be torn down, he asked for a rough estimated cost to bulldoze the project in order to answer “legitimate questions from constituents.”
Later in the day, the council voted to fund an additional $21 million to finish the Silver Spring Transit Center. Leventhal said he would do so “while holding his nose.”
“I’m deeply unhappy about it and every council member seated up here is deeply unhappy about it. And I know you are too, Mr. Dise,” Leventhal said.
Councilman Roger Berliner, who heads the council’s transportation committee, voted for the additional appropriation.
“At this point, to not finish this project would be totally irresponsible. We’re not happy. It hasn’t been a project that any of us is proud of,” Berliner said.
But with the completion so close, the right thing to do is “to move on and get it done,” he said.
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