The Silver Spring Penguin

The county needs 16.7 million extra bucks to break ground on downtown Silver Spring’s transit center. But two county council members say the project should go for more — about $1.3 million more.

While the extra $16.7 million covers rising construction costs, the extra extra cash could buy the transit center glass-enclosed escalators, and a glass awning and commuter-services store/police station just outside the Metro station entrance (below). Council members Marc Elrich and Nancy Floreen (both at-large Dems) say go for it.

“I hope we can work this out in committee and find some money for it,” Elrich told his colleagues during Tuesday afternoon’s public hearing on the $16.7 million appropriation. Floreen echoed Elrich, saying the county should get the project “right the first time.”

But why were the awning, escalators and commuter store pulled from the plans (below)? That depends on whom you ask. (That’s right, people. I said whom.)

In a Jun 27 letter to the council, planning board chairperson Royce Hanson described a county-run shell game, where the transit center’s standard and optional features couldn’t be sorted.

And when the planning board tried to muscle the project for frou-frou by holding out on 35,000 square feet of real estate, the plan crapped out. The county scored the missing piece of land it needed to build the transit center, and the planning board got a 23,000 square-foot urban park on the Colesville Road jug handle. And still no frou-frou.

Without the bells and whistles, the public investment would be squandered on a substandard project, Hanson wrote to the council.

But big wigs with the department of general services argue that the phat dubs, 36-inch subwoofers and fuzzy dice can go into the project later, when the county is in better financial shape, and that their absence doesn’t mean the ride won’t roll.

For example, the transit center’s escalators will still be encased in expensive glass, though some parts of the enclosures will be less expensive metal, Don Sheuerman, of the general services department, explained to Silver Spring’s citizens advisory board Monday night (below). The county can also throw in those signature brick sidewalk pavers later rather than sooner, he added.

Bruce Johnston, who also rolls with the department of general services, has his take on things. A canopy over the Metro station entrance would be redundant, he said, as commuters could easily run into the station itself in case of rain. And a small police station would concentrate the PD presence in one area only, as opposed to shmearing cops all over the site, he told the county council Tuesday.

“I think the rhetoric has overrun reality,” council member George Leventhal (D-At large) remarked. “The differences are not that stark.”

The council’s transportation committee revisits the appropriation request on Monday.

Embedded images courtesy of MNCPPC, Flickr users ChromeHearts, Brian-Progressive Spin, LoveSick and TheCourtyard.