the BScubed/Snow Job Award goes to...

the Silver Spring Transit Center "team": 

• Montgomery County MD's Executive, Council and staff (notably the Department of General Services, and its director, David Dise, Edward Blansitt, Montgomery County MD Inspector General, and Timothy L. Firestine, Montgomery County MD Chief Administrative Officer)
• WMATA
• Federal Transit Administration
• Maryland Transit Administration
• Montgomery County's paid consultants (Parsons Brinkerhoff, KCE)
• Montgomery County's pro bono advisors
• and the news media--print, TV, radio, internet--who haven't reported "in-depth" and who haven't asked "probing questions" 

for endorsing repairs to the SSTC that won't fix the problem 
and for not holding public meetings where those paying for the SSTC, the public, can ask their questions and make their comments on the public record. 

A latex concrete overlay won't fix the SSTC's extensive concrete cracking. External steel braces on under-designed beams from which 3-inch thick pieces of concrete have fallen (according to reports in Engineering News Record) won't fix the SSTC's extensive concrete cracking either; but, the SSTC "team" endorses these "repairs" anyway.

The SSTC's extensive concrete cracking is likely caused by its total lack of expansion/contraction joints, a serious defect identified in KCE's March 15, 2013 report. WMATA's design and construction standards, to which the SSTC was supposed to have been designed and built, require expansion/contraction joints be placed no farther than 100 ft. apart. The 315 ft. by 580 ft. SSTC has NONE. We ALL know what happens to large water mains in freezing temperatures--they break. And we ALL know what happens to concrete roads without expansion/contraction joints when it gets hot--they buckle. HUGE forces can result from temperature changes in large structures without expansion/contraction joints. Cracking concrete is no surprise.

How does one retrofit expansion/contraction joints into an existing (albiet unopened) 315 ft. by 580 ft. hardened concrete structure that has none? Can it be done? Is this perhaps why the SSTC "team" is endorsing repairs that won't fix the problem? to "snow job" the public?

Congratulations, SSTC "team". The BScubed/Snow Job Award is yours. 

the BScubed/You've Got To Be Kidding Me Award goes to...

Delaware transportation secretary Shailen Bhatt who told the AP: "We closed the bridge in time. We did not have a failure. That bridge is still standing and nobody has been injured. I'm happy to accept responsibility for this agency's actions."

http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Businessman-I-reported-bridge-problems-in-April-5534046.php

Thank God that there wasn't a failure and nobody was injured, Secretary Bhatt. Don't thank the Delaware DOT employees who didn't act on the "heads up" that they got from a citizen MORE THAN 8 WEEKS AGO.

Secretary Bhatt, in the future, in the interest of brevity, please use the number from BScubed's List of 99 Standard Baseless Self Serving Statements, e.g., "#1" (which happens to be "it's all good").

Congratulations, Secretary Bhatt, the BScubed (Baseless Self Serving Statement)/You've Got To Be Kidding Me Award is yours.