Commuters, get ready for sidewalk detours and new bus stops in strange places. Construction on Silver Spring’s transit center (below) starts later this month, the director of Silver Spring’s regional center said.
A groundbreaking ceremony (yeah, another one) hasn’t been scheduled yet, but buses will be rerouted from their usual Metro station stops starting Sep 28, Gary Stith informed the citizens advisory board Monday night. New bus shelters have already sprouted around Wayne, Ramsey and Dixon Avenues, as well as on Bonifant Street and the downtown “jug handle”.
And according to a map presented by Stith (below), cabbies will pick up fares along Ramsey Avenue near Wayne, next to the new Trips commuter-services center. Kiss-and-Riders can get their grooves on along Bonifant Street near Dixon.
The construction project also will reroute pedestrian traffic, Stith warned. Commuters who usually trudge through the Metro station’s southeast entrance will be led through a jersey-barrier gauntlet connecting Wayne Avenue with the Metro station (red line, below). The gauntlet actually cuts through the construction site itself and will allow crews to rework a water main under the Colesville Road sidewalk, Stith explained.
View Larger Map
Making the schlep from East Silver Spring? Pedestrians can pound the pavement down Bonifant Street, hang north on Ramsey to Wayne, then through the gauntlet, Stith suggested. Once development of the adjacent Metropolitan Branch bike and hike trail is a wrap, peds will have the option of swinging south on Ramsey from Bonifant to hook up with the Metro station, he added (green line).
Residents of South Silver Spring and the Blair Portal (can we call it that?) are off the hook. The Metro station’s southwest and north entrances won’t be affected.
To keep things in check, two crossing guards will hustle the pedestrian flow during morning and afternoon rush hours, Stith said. Members of downtown’s Red Shirt brigade will also be available to direct tourists and other lost people through the maze. And in case you need a diagram, don’t worry. Stith said 80,000 of them will be distributed at the Metro station and on buses, in English and en espanol.
Construction will take at least two years, Stith added.
Updated Sep 10, 2008, at 2:00 p.m. to reflect changes in the Google map.
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Wow, gird up your loins and prepare yourself, it is going to be rough!!!!
“Construction on Silver Spring’s transit center (below) starts later this month”
I will believe it when my own eyes see it.
The County/State is biting off a lot at the same time: new library, Veterans’ Plaza, and now this Transit Center. With all the construction going on simultaneously, I imagine that car and pedestrian traffic will be, at best, awful.
I originally heard that the Greyhound bus stop on Fenton would also move to the Transit-Center. Does anyone know if this is true?
Finally!
Jen you are really knocking the socks off the other blogs in reporting the latest issues…at least development news. In the last few days it’s just been one update after another–a refreshing change after a lull of not much being reported. Great job.
Editor’s note: Thanks, Woodsider. — JD (Sep 9, 2008)
When do we get to see the “final” design of the transit center? The county hasn’t released anything since they allocated the additional $16 million (i think) to make sure it wasn’t completely brutalist-style in the finished product.
Thanks for all your comments. Justin wrote:
Yep, the Greyhound buses will be moving to the transit center, along with Peter Pan.
Any chance we can get Metro to open the entrance to the station on the north side of Colesville Road on weekends during the construction? That would help a lot of people avoid the construction zone.
Does anyone know how this will affect pedestrian traffic around the metro station? For instance, coming from the Blair area with the Giant and heading toward downtown (under the platform between Colesville Rd and the Metro entrance)? I make that walk several times a week. I’ll have to use that silly looking tunnel in the other direction, won’t I?
The go to site for Silver Spring info, ditto on the good job!
“peds will have the option of swinging south on Ramsey from Bonifant to hook up with the Metro station”
Can you please elaborate on this? Does this mean that, once the transit center is built, we will be able to get to the metro platform from an entrance near the current MARC station or even farther south? My ideal would be for Ripley to connect to Ramsey and to a new entrance on the southeast corner. Fingers crossed.
Safety first, for everyone, especially peds and construction workers! When it rains/snows/sleets, don’t let icy puddles form — or at least if they do — put a non-slippery ramp over them.
Thanks to all for your comments. Robin asked:
If you wanted to get from the Giant supermarket to the Downtown Silver Spring shopping center, you’d have to walk under the platform along Colesville (as you do now), then through the gauntlet until you get to Wayne Avenue. See the red line in the article’s updated map.
Incidentally, the gauntlet is not a tunnel. Just a ped path surrounded by construction, and separated from it by jersey (concrete) barriers.
Mark asked:
Nope. If you approach the transit center from the southeast (eg, Bonifant Street), you’ll be able to access the Metropolitan Branch Trail. That path will lead you north towards the existing Metro station entrance. See the green line in the article’s updated map.
Speaking of Bonifant Street, is anybody going to make the intersection with Georgia safer? Drivers are awful about encroaching on the crosswalk on Ga. and also at Bonifant. What’s with those funky things that stick up in the middle of the intersection on Georgia? Drivers drive IN THE CROSSWALK to avoid them. Amazing. A ped is in the crosswalk, heading toward Piratz Tavern, and a car is driving in the crosswalk at you.
It’s too bad they moved my bus stop to Bonifant St. this triples the distance I have to walk to get to work. It’s actually physically closer, but that pesky railroad track with no crossings gets in the way.
Is there another crossing from E-W Hwy over the tracks between Colesville and Georgia, or do I really need to walk all the way around?
For the record, you can walk down to the MARC train stop, up the overpass and over the tracks, and wind up in a parking garage below 1315 E-W Hwy. Works for me!
i would like to know when this project will started the expecific date if anybody please tell me.
February 23, 2009 update – I work in NOAA building #2, and I just checked out a window overlooking the transit center site. Nothing is going on at the construction site today. It’s been about three weeks since they packed up the last piece of construction equipment and took it away. When is someone going to step up and explain this extended period of inaction?
Probably changing over from the demolition subcontractor to one of the construction subs. I have no idea what element of the project would come first after utility relocation and demolition, but you’d think in this economy nobody would be dragging their feet to get to work.
Sounds like a possible explanation, but they’ve only completed about half of the excavation. They have to dig all the way up to the MARC train station structure, and they’re only half way there. I wonder if it’s something related to contractor’s financial health.
Wow, I hope not. It’s surreal how long it has taken to get this project rolling from the teaser concept drawings of 6-7 years ago to the dragged out demolition. When I lived in Atlanta, they would have had this thing designed and built in about 18 months. Of course, that kind of speed has led that area to the nation’s second worst sprawl after LA.
I’m from LA, and they got the I-10 bridge over La Cienega Blvd rebuilt in only 3 months after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. That was no short bridge, either. It shows how when you get a project rolling where money is not limited (they had a fat incentive for the contractor if they got the job done early), you can do almost anything. We know that they’ve been trying to do the Transit Center on a shoestring – cutting costs wherever possible.
2/26/09 Update – they have one small power shovel digging a hole near the MARC train station – five men standing around watching and one guy operating the equipment. If they’re starting to work on a retaining wall for the railroad tracks – that would be good, since you can’t do any more excavation for the Center unless you have something to shore up the railroad/Metro tracks
3/12/09 Update – nothing much has happened at the construction site during the last two weeks. They’ve been doing some drilling at various locations, especially last Tuesday – quite a racket. Because of this drilling, I’ve developed a new theory as to why the delay in excavation is occurring – they encountered extensive rock which ordinary excavation equipment could not remove. Therefore, they’re doing a lot of drilling to assess how extensive the rock is before proceeding. Underground blasting would be required to loosen such rock. Supporting my theory is the fact that they had to do a lot of underground blasting of rock right across the tracks back in the early 1990’s when constructing NOAA Buildings 3 and 4, and that same rock may extend northward into the transit center area. I’m in NOAA Building 2 and sometimes we would rush over to the south windows when there were three horn blasts to hear watch the ground rise up and down when the explosives went off. Our whole building used to shake when the charges were detonated.
If my theory is correct, I still think the contractor is without excuse for this construction delay because they should have known about the subterrainian rock before they began the project. Also, why aren’t they working on things that could be completed right away, such as constructing the new sidewalk along Colesville Road?
Tim, good sleuthing and theorizing! It is Basic Construction 101 that during the design process, borings would have been taking throughout the site to assess any underlying conditions. Of course, perhaps they did and just happened to miss the rock (assuming it is there). The guessing continues.
Thanks for the update, Tim. If they do resort to blasting at the transit center site, I’ve gotta see it!
Also, I’m not sure which sidewalk you’re asking about, but I know the county had to delay pedestrian safety fixes in the area. Transit center construction has scrambled the usual traffic flow, making it difficult to study pedestrian and vehicular behavior. And without that info, the county won’t know how to fix what, according to the transportation department.
Re: the sidewalk, the drawings for the new transit center show a sidewalk between Wayne Ave and the Metro entrance that is immediately along the curb of Colesvile Road, like the one at the Discovery building Currently, they have a temporary one with fences on each side which just uses a portion of the old bus station sidewalk. The one downside to making the sidewalk now would be that once it is completed and opened, people wanting to take the shortest path to the bust stop on the southbound side will start jaywalking across Colesville like they used to. The way to stop that would be to construct a metal fence in the median of Colesville (except where the new bus entrance will be, which could be blocked with a temporary fence). I’ve seen that done in other locations.
The upside is that once the new sidewalk is complete, they could start excavating away the old bus station sidewalk down to the level for the new transit center.
Re: blasting – it wouldn’t just be one blast, it would be several over a period of days. Rules are that they have to sound a loud horn three times before they detonate the charges. All you see is the ground rising slightly and then dirt falling back through the newly formed cracks. Then there might be a little dust cloud. Still, it’s kind of cool to watch. They also did blasting for the Lennox Park apartments.
Tim, when you say “drawings”, do you mean the actual construction documents being used by the contractor or the color 3-D views that have been heavily circulated? If you mean the latter, then what is actually to be built could be quite different.
Woody – I meant the heavily circulated 3-D views. Makes sense that they would build the sidewalk right next to the curb along Colesville, so they will have maximum real estate to work with when constructing the multi-story buildings.
Re: median fences, someone here at NOAA pointed out that they already have one on Wayne Avenue near Georgia Avenue. I wonder if they were smart enough to plan for one on Colesville?
True, unless the county/state made them put in a silly little landscape strip like you see so often between the sidewalk and the street.
March 23 update – lots of drilling and some digging here and there has occurred in the last ten days. I think they know where the rock is and the holes are for the first set of charges. They put a little red flag over each location where they drilled. I bet we starting hearing some rumbles within a month or two. Still no work has been done to remove the utility poles – bad planning in my opinion.
April 18 update – quite a bit of digging went on in the past three weeks — they’ve dug into another 20 or thirty feet of the slope, so the “hole” is closer to the MARC train station. Perhaps Woodsider was right and the drilling was just for testing purposes. I’ve also seen them drilling at different spots in the old MetroBus loop – are they trying to find out how deep the loose dirt is there also? Who knows? Maybe blasting won’t be necessary.
No progress on removing the electrical lines that approach the MARC train station or building a new sidewalk along Colesville Road. They did erect one new utility pole along Ramsey Ave and trimmed most of the trees along the street to the point where I don’t see why they didn’t just cut the poor things down all the way. Mighty strange the way this project is being handled. It still seems like they’re kind of giving it a half effort.
September 22, 2009 update – a year into the project, and the excavation for the new structure is still incomplete. In fact, grass is sprouting up all over the place and it’s looking pretty green. No workers have been out there for over a week. I don’t understand what’s going on – this should be prime weather for construction work, and yet nothing is getting done.
Throughout the spring and summer, I was hard pressed to find more than a dozen people working at a given time – maybe a few times there were maybe 20 men working down there. It’s supposed to be a $85 million project, but I think the county said to the contractor “we’ll give you a few million dollars this year,” and the contractor said “o.k., we’ll give you a few million dollars worth of work.”
Based on the rate of progress I’ve seen so far, my guess is the project won’t be finished for another three to four years. Compare that to the Discovery building, which practically went up before our eyes.
They finally did remove the electrical lines that were in the work area, but they still haven’t started on the new sidewalk along Colesville Road. A while back they started working on a retaining wall along the railroad tracks, close to the MARC station, but they haven’t done anything to extend what they have towards the Metro station.
Editor’s note: This comment was edited because I’ve got an article on this topic. Don’t steal my thunder, Tim! — JD (Sep 22, 2009)
Looking on the bright side, I came up with 2 responses to Tim:
1. Yes, they’re bringing back the turf (just happens to be real grass sprouting up in the middle of the transit center construction site).
2. From the designs that I’ve seen of the final project, I think it probably isn’t going to look any nicer when they’re finished. Enjoy the view while it lasts!
No problem about the edits JD – I look forward to seeing the article. Today, I did see quite a few workmen putting together some rebar next to the site supervisor trailers – looks like they’re getting ready to do some kind of construction somewhere.