the BScubed/Structural Expert Award goes to...

update, 9/3/14:
http://silverspringtransitcenter.blogspot.com/2014/09/stop-purple-lines-public-private.html
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update, 8/31/14:
http://pileofsteamingbs.blogspot.com/2014/08/controlling-silver-spring-transit.html
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The Silver Spring Transit Center (so-called) structural experts: 

• Montgomery County council 
• Montgomery County staff
• Montgomery County paid consultants
• Montgomery County pro bono advisory group to the Montgomery County Executive

The citation for the prestigious BScubed/Structural Expert Award reads:
“The KCE report that Montgomery County commissioned to investigate the SSTC’s severe cracking (that Montgomery County posted on their website in March 2013) notes that the 315 ft. by 580 ft. SSTC has no expansion/contraction joints ALL structural experts know that expansion/contraction joints are needed for large structures subject to temperature changes. In their design and construction standards, to which the SSTC was supposed to have been designed and built, WMATA requires that expansion/contraction joints be located no more than 100 feet apart. The SSTC has none!

Despite this glaring oversight, Montgomery County and its band of experts are proceeding with a “repair” plan, costing ten$ of million$,  that doesn’t address the core problem—the SSTC’s complete lack of expansion/contraction joints.

Congratulations, (so-called) structural experts! The BScubed/Structural Expert Award is yours.”

The BS cubed Structural Expert Award Selection Committee would like to point out a couple of notable exceptions to the very public group of bureaucrat/politician structural experts who, without fanfare or notoriety, got it right. Namely, on April 7, 2010, more than FOUR YEARS ago, Montgomery County building inspector George Mavroumatis asked whether the SSTC's design will cause the concrete to crack at the edge of the bus deck. (KCE attachments, vol. 2, p. 84.) http://www.actfortransit.org/purple_transit_center.html

Besides Mr. Mavroumatis, the committee would also like to acknowledge WMATA's engineers who have repeatedly told Montgomery County's council that the severely cracked SSTC will be expensive to maintain and operate. This, despite the fact that WMATA's general manager, and bureaucrat/politician, Richard Sarles, backpedaled from his engineers' testimony before the County council, and assured the council that WMATA would accept the severely flawed SSTC. The BScubed/Spineless Award committee is considering Mr. Sarles for recognition.
http://silverspringtransitcenter.blogspot.com/2014/02/wmatas-engineers-are-right.html

The committee would also like to recognize the media, whose “in-depth reporting” and “probing questions” have failed to uncover the failure of the award recipients to recognize the obvious, and to come up with a “repair” plan that addresses the core problem—the SSTC’s complete lack of expansion/contraction joints.