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 photo blog hiatus

I won't be able to take my weekly photos of the Silver Spring Transit Center/mud hole for the next couple of weeks. My intention is to take this back up at the end of the month. In the meantime, please feel free to post a link to your own photos in the comments section.

Signs of Life at Silver Spring Transit Center

November 10, 2009. The Silver Spring Transit Center is abuzz with activity. Excavators, trucks, construction workers. Not much going on November 11, but it's also been raining all day today and the site is a mud pit. The photos here are from Nov. 10.

Silver Spring Transit Center Weekly Update

This week's update on the Silver Spring Transit Center:
Photos above taken Monday, November 2, 2009, about 8:45 AM

Ground breaking for the project: September 2008

YouTube poster obs3rv3r has an updated video, dated November 2, 2009. This appears to be a series of still pictures showing a couple of earth movers doing...well, something.

Montgomery County's project web page,still has Update #20 on its Status link, last updated March 16, 2009

Silver Spring Transit Center, still has one entry and one photo, last updated March 8, 2009

Silver Spring Downtown, still has the same posting with artist's conceptions of how the finished product will look, and the verbiage about starting the project is still in the future tense.

The Silver Spring Gazette's article of October 21 is still the most recent, and by far the most helpful information. A search of their website turns up nothing newer than this.

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".

Train wrecks and prison breaks

TGIF. It's been over a month since the train wreck in June, and things are still not back to normal. August promises to be a month of switch repairs and track work. Commuting takes up more time these days, and I'm wearier when I get home. Nothing like those folks who hit the road at 5AM, thankfully, but the trek to and from the paying job takes close to three hours out of my day these days. I read my friends' Facebook postings about mid-day trips to the pool and dropping by the sculpture garden after work for a quick jazz concert and I get a little envious. But I also remember my friends who have been out of work for over a year (and yes, I know more than one such person), and I think that I can put up with the interminable commute to the cubie farm a little bit longer. But I'm plotting my escape.

So Happy to Be Home

No postings for a month, and here I'm doing two in one day. I am so grateful, relieved, and dog-tired, but I am home safe and sound. Earlier this evening I had no clue what was waiting for me after I left the office. Here's what the email notice said:
(ID 55699) Disruption at Fort Totten. Trains are turning back at Brookland-CUA & Silver Spring due to a police situation outside of Fort Totten station. Shuttle bus service has been established.

Actually, the message above is from 9:30 tonight, but it's the same message that I saw at about 5:30, as I was getting ready to pack up and leave the office. I didn't know until a couple of hours later that "disruption" meant that around 5 PM one train rear-ended another one with so much force that the back train rode up over the front train, ripping out the floor. Six people are dead, about 70 injured. My normal 1-hour commute took almost 3.5 hours, and it involved two trains, a hike through the District of Columbia to try and find a bus that could squeeze in another few people, a 7-mile bus ride that took the better part of an hour, and a one-mile bus ride that took about 15 minutes (instead of the usual 5-7).

In situations like this, one's fellow commuters are somehow friendlier and chattier, even if we are all tired and stressed out. Something about all being on the lifeboat together brings out the camaraderie. I ran into my upstairs neighbor during my quest for a Metro bus, and somehow she was reminded of a bus trip to a Beatles concert in Philadelphia, which piqued the interest of a fellow bus rider we had never met before. We also picked up bits of the crash story from people who were getting cell phone updates from their friends and families. We learned that the S9 express bus starts out at 13th and I Street -- wish we had known this before, this kind of information is pure gold to those of us who rely on public transportation. But I will know this next time. I hope there isn't a next time, but I know there will be.

In any case, my neighbor Yvonne and I got home with nothing worse than a case of tired feet. I am thankful to be home. It could have been so much worse.