Transit Pork, Again
The county executive, the county council, and the county planning board have been feuding lately. It’s all about power struggles. The planning board has rejected the county exec’s plans for the Silver Spring music center, because they fear he is taking too much authority away from them. Now the question is about the Silver Spring Transit Center (Actually, that is technically the Paul S. Sarbanes Silver Spring Transit Center.) You know we’ve got white elephant pork (the other white meat?) when the politicians are not only building monuments to themselves, but modestly naming it after themselves, too.)
In an earlier post, I questioned how much (not whether) the cost of this monstrosity would increase over the initial $75 million. Now we are starting to see. County Executive Leggett has asked for an additional $16.7 million for frills. The Council doesn’t think that is enough, so they appropriated an additional $18.6 million. Says Council member Valerie Ervin, “I think that we should be building buildings that are aesthetically beautiful.”
No, Valerie. You should be conserving the taxpayers’ funds, rather than building monuments to politicians. The purpose of the center is to bring together Metrorail, buses, and MARC at the same location. That’s exactly what we have now – without spending an additional $100 million of county taxes.
This is a project that should be killed now, before construction begins.
Tags: Silver Spring Transit Center, Valerie Ervin
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