Well, heck. Here is a photo I took on December 9. If it looks like not a lot has changed since my last posting in August, you're right. Apparently, a subcontractor was cutting corners, and the thickness of the concrete was not up to industry standards at several places on the top level. Completion of the transit center has been delayed "indefinitely". Here are a couple of links to articles in the Washington Post:

Silver Spring Transit Hub Gets Another Delay (Jan. 10)

Silver Spring Transit Center Delayed Indefinitely (Jan. 13)

News from the Silver Spring Transit Center

The big hole in the ground now has what appears to be a forest of rebar sticking out in one area. Dare we hope for actual construction before the two-year anniversary in September?

Silver Spring Transit Center now has a gravel pile

After a long hiatus, here are a couple more photos of the hole in the ground that is the Paul Sarbanes Transit Center in Silver Spring. You will notice that a gravel pile feature has been added. As a reminder, groundbreaking for this project was September 2008, just over a year and a half ago.

Digging a Bigger Hole

The excavation crew is back at it at the Silver Spring Transit Center site. Lots of equipment coming and going, most of the digging was happening near the MARC platform this morning (the end farthest from Wayne Avenue). The big pit continues to expand.

Signs of Life at Silver Spring Transit Center (again)

Activity at the Silver Spring Transit Center and Mud Hole seems to be picking up in a more visible way lately. The noise level was definitely up this morning. From the sound of it, they were breaking up a layer of rock or concrete using one of those big drop-hammer machines. The latest batch of photos, which I took yesterday, show the hole getting deeper and the retaining wall getting bigger.

The Washington Post finally had something to say on the matter. Dr. Gridlock's page in Sunday's paper showed the grass-covered slopes from a few months ago (print issue only, apparently) and a drawing of what the completed project is supposed to look like. The article basically recapped what the bloggers have been telling you for months -- the project is behind schedule, and much of the activity (relocating utility lines, removing contaminated soil) has been the kind that is not easily visible from the street. Things will probably get noisier over the next several months, when the rock blasting starts. The hole will grow to roughly twice the size of what it was this summer, according to the Post article, which quotes David Dise, director of Montgomery County's Department of General Services. "Once the excavation is done, you're going to see it spring out of the ground," Dise said, referring to the bus plaza and other buildings planned for the center. I hope he's right. At the pace things are moving now, I keep having to check the date stamps on my photos to make sure I'm posting the right ones from week to week.

Silver Spring Transit Center, the Dig Continues

Another week, a bigger hole in the ground. What else can I say?
If you have just started reading this blog, here is a summary of the most useful links so far:
An October 21, 2009 article from the Silver Spring Gazette, which estimates completion of the project in February 2011. The article cites utility line relocations as the source of the delay.

An October 27, 2009 blog posting from the Silver Spring Penguin adds petrochemical cleanup from a former fuel storage facility, and naturally occurring asbestos to the mix.

A YouTube contributor known as "obz3rv3r" has posted several time-lapse photo sequences of the evolution of the hole in the ground, spanning from June through early November 2009.

But basically, it's still just a big hole in the ground.

Silver Spring Transit Center, More Photos

I'm back in town and I managed to take several photos of the Silver Spring Transit Center-to-be this morning. Lots of digging in the dirt and trucks going back and forth. It's still a big hole in the ground, but most of the grass is gone from the slopes and there does seem to be a lot of activity. Which is more than I can say for the various municipal and county websites that are supposed to be keeping us current on this project.

I somehow missed an October posting from the Silver Spring Penguin that goes into some detail on the toxic petrochemicals and naturally occurring asbestos that had to be dealt with during excavation.

Here's a November 11 blog posting with some interesting info on how the Purple Line fits into the whole scheme of things.

Silver Spring Transit Center Plods Along

So what exactly is the deal with the Paul Sarbanes Transit Center in Silver Spring? More than a year after groundbreaking, we have a big muddy hole in the ground, with lush grass growing up the sides. Every now and then, you see a back hoe pawing listlessly, moving a little bit of dirt from here to there. Not a lot of progress for one year's work. If you do some serious Googling, you find that the construction company had to move a lot of utility lines that they hadn't planned on. Thus, the delay. Apparently, they have been very busy all this time, but all the activity has been underground. And things are "really going to pop" very soon, according to a recent article in the Silver Spring Gazette. We'll see. In the meantime, here are some useful and not-so-useful links, plus a few pictures that I took from the Metro platform on October 26, 2009, around 9AM.

Montgomery County's project web page, last updated March 16, 2009

Silver Spring Transit Center, a one-entry, one-photo blog, last updated March 8, 2009
Silver Spring Downtown, a local civic-pride-type website states: "Construction on improvements for the area for temporary bus operations during construction will start in the Fall of 2006. Construction on the Transit Center project will start in June of 2007." Note the use of the future tense. Actual groundbreaking date: September 2008.
More recently, someone with a username of obs3rv3r posted a YouTube video showing weekly photos spanning June to September 2009. Just so you can see how truly slowly this thing is moving.
The Silver Spring Gazette has the most recent, and by far the most helpful information. Their article is dated Oct. 21, 2009. The adjective they use is "plodding".