S/O What should MoCo do about parking in downtown Bethesda
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Anonymous
Lower speeds give drivers better peripheral vision and more reaction time. Plus if there is a crash, it's less likely to kill or seriously injure the pedestrian at lower speeds. If it's not safe for people to cross there because the drivers are driving too fast, then the answer isn't to take away the marked crosswalk. It's to get people to drive more slowly. |
Anonymous
OP of this thread here I don't believe in shaming people for their personal choices, given the options made available to them. I mean its great if someone chooses to do something personally inconvenient to save the planet, whether that is choosing an alternative means of travel even when handy and affordable parking is available, or choosing to grow vegetables in your garden when its not that easy, or going composting, or whatever. But I don't think that is how we change our communities much less save the planet - we do so by policy changes. That is why I tried to make this about policy. If there is no policy change at issue, there is not much more to say. I thought maybe there is a question either about management of the County garages, or about parking minimums/maximums at private developments. Also I wonder if there are initiatives to improve bus service into downtown Bethesda (I know about the Purple Line of course) - ISTR a BRT line on Rockville Pike as part of the County BRT plan? But sounds like that wouldnt help the individual in question. I mention because this is a spin off of a thread about Alexandria where there is more bus service, and consideration to increasing that. |
Anonymous
As someone who walks in downtown and Bethesda a lot, I am not sure I find Bethesda less safe than dc. |
Anonymous
Downtown DC also has a lot of parking garage entrances across sidewalks. |
Anonymous
| In addition to parking, the County needs to address feeder routes into downtown Bethesda. Why have they configured Stanford Street (and other side streets) to block access from Wisconsin Avenue? I mean, I know why - it's because people in the $2+m houses don't want cars driving down their streets, but then why put a Target, a Trader Joe's AND now an urgent care office at the end of the street? It creates gridlock at the intersection, especially given the tiny parking garage there. And it forces more cars onto Bradley and EW Highway because most of the other east-west roads have been re-engineered to preserve the splendid isolation of the lawyers and lobbyists who live there. |
Anonymous
We are frying our planet right now, potentially impacting its ability to sustain the number of people living on it and we used to think these were year 2100 issues it now appears these maybe year 2050 issues. So I've got no trouble shaming people about how much carbon they are responsible for. As to the question at hand Bethesda is very well served by buses. The problem is the bus routes are not well thought or or efficient. Most of the ride on buses run on convoluted routes through very congested areas instead of on more efficient direct routes. It is great that some of these routes hit lots of corners and neighborhoods but when it takes 40 minutes to go from Bethesda to Wheaton in an affluent area the only people you are going to get taking these buses are lower income folks who have no alternatives. So because they are slow, and also because the routes don't make a lot of sense (zigzagging on and off the main routes rather than running on them in a straight line) some people who would otherwise use the buses don't. Something like what DC does with the circulator routes might make sense during the AM/PM rush hour - buses running reliably every 10 minutes along a logical route. When you are transferring from Metrorail and you just miss a bus that runs every 20 minutes it just kills ridership, especially this time of year. It would also help a great deal if all of the jurisdictions made the bus free when you are transferring to and from Metrorail instead of being an additional charge. I also think Montgomery County needs to find some ways to enable the buses to not have to come off the main roads and loop through the stations - there are a number of routes that serve but don't begin or end at the Bethesda station but all of those buses have to go through the station which adds 4-5 minutes to each route - find a way for those buses to stay on Wisconsin Avenue and just pull in and out of the bus stops. Same thing with the Medical Center Stop and Silver Spring. |
Anonymous
This is true. But 1) the parking garages in DC are all private and 2) the sidewalks in DC are a minimum of 30 feet wide and on some of the avenues are 40 feet wide. Also the parking garages in DC are largely used for all day parking while the subsidized Bethesda garages are oriented towards short term parking which means a lot more vehicle movements throughout the day. |
Anonymous
There are many ways to improve bus service into downtown Bethesda. The ride-on buses are infrequent (can be up to 23 minutes in rush hour), and those stupid Bethesda circulator buses don't go metro to metro and are often empty. People tried to post these suggestions in a recent Ride-On survey but were told that the survey wasn't about Ride-On service, but whether people were taking ride on or not (as if the two issues weren't related). |
Anonymous
Bethesda is not very well served by buses - unless you mean that there are lots of bus routes that go to Bethesda Metro. |
Anonymous
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We dont' need fast bus service from Bethesda to Wheaton. That's what the Purple Line will be for.
The Circulator buses work well to get people around Bethesda, and to/from the Metro. If you want to go Metro station to Metro station, then take the Metro. That's not the point of the Circulator bus. |
Anonymous
As someone who has ridden on the L Street "protected" bike lane, I guess I am kind of particularly aware of the hazards presented by all those private parking garages downtown. |
Anonymous
No it is not - the Purple Line goes to Silver Spring not Wheaton. So someone would have to transfer again which no one with means will do. So yes the bus times from Bethesda to Wheaton should be improved, even with the Purple Line coming. And it also doesn't make to take Metro from one suburban station to another - that is actually in part what the Purple Line is for. And there aren't any Circulator buses in Bethesda or even any circulator type buses serving Bethesda |
Anonymous
I didn't say they aren't hazards - they certainly are - but I stand behind the argument that they are less hazardous than the Bethesda Garages. It is rare when there isn't a queue of cars waiting to get in and out of any parking garage in Bethesda and that queue usually blocks the sidewalk and often the road. |
Anonymous
What are you talking about? Are you posting from Loudon county? https://www.bethesda.org/bethesda/bethesda-circulator |
Anonymous
Fair enough - not sure how I missed as I use public transportation in Bethesda almost every week. Still odd to not have a 2-3 linear routes - for example the Bethesda commercial corridor along 355 is .8 miles long so why not just run a straight route from Bradley to the National Library of Medicine? Or better yet just have a bus running every 10 minutes between Friendship Heights and Medical Center that stops on the street at the Bethesda Metro so it keeps moving? And then maybe a second linear route out Old Georgetown to Suburban which would give you a nice connection to the NIH jobs on the west end of Campus. Instead the existing route is a very inefficient figure 8 - sure it covers most of Bethesda but I bet that is one slow bus route with all of those turns and running on all the side streets. |