What Will Be the @SSTransitCenter's Legacy?

MCYR
Aug 12, 2015
2 min read

In September, WMATA aka Metro plans to formally assume control of the Silver Spring Transit Center and potentially open it for use by its rightful owners... the tax-paying MoCo public. Conceptualized in 1997 by Doug Duncan, seeded with tax dollars and study groups in the early 2000s, designed and constructed from 2008-2013 and then "re-fortified" in 2014-15, the project has literally spanned an entire generation. Kids growing up in this era in MoCo's down county could literally be called "the Silver Spring Transit Class of 2015".

It took 17 years of planning, construction, re-construction, arguments about management, still more planning and now a lawsuit to get this "center" done. In this time, over $140 million dollars has been spent on labor, contractors, materials, lawyers and more. To put that in perspective: that's potentially 3 brand new MoCo Elementary schools in a county that has little kids in pre-fab trailers each and every school year!

Money aside, what is the ultimate legacy of the troubled, most likely structurally deficient transit center? The best guess here is a facility that probably doesn't get utilized much anyway - or at least not nearly as much as envisioned in 2008. Metro ridership continues to plateau and decline and the system itself is plagued by inconsistent service. Gas is $2.50 per gallon and falling (despite former Gov O'Malley's best efforts). Then, as more structural deficiencies are noted in the "Transit Center", it is also a strong bet that Metro will be hesistant to run buses through the facility with regularity. Why run buses through a garage that might not be able to support these vehicles after a few years? Finally, initial plans had called for the "Purple Line" light rail to intersect and stop at the "Transit Center". How much more money will have to go into creating this link-up? $100 million more?

The ultimate legacy of the Silver Spring Transit Center will be more cars on the roads, more traffic and more local infrastructure neglect as this monstrosity soaks in more tax dollars to maintain. All of which are echoes of the law of unintended consequences that County Council "leaders" failed to adequately prepare for. Unfortunately, this is the state of MoCo transit policy and county management today.