Reply to S/O What should MoCo do about parking in downtown Bethesda

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The minimum parking required by the Montgomery County planning board does not come close to match the actual parking spots needed for the density being built. For example, 600 units, 35% of which are two and three bedroom units, 800 parking spots. Guess what, there's going to be families, roommates, Etc, and more than 200 of the 600 units will have more than one driver, with a car. And yet that's what's encouraged (this actaul example is for the 2 high rise buildings at the Pookshill Marriott site).

As far as Bethesda, I live less than 2 miles from downtown Bethesda, and we rarely go there. Why? Because parking sucks, and I don't want to spend 30 minutes driving around looking for parking, or getting stuck in a long line in a garage. There are plenty of places to go where I can easily find a parking spot, and that's what we do.  Limit the parking, you'll have even more families like us just avoiding the area.[/quote]

Well it doesn't sound like you go there much now with the parking status quo, so why should someone care that you're avoiding the area?  More urban types who are inclined to walk or bus to restaurants and live in town will be far more lucrative for retail owners.[/quote]

No one goes there anymore - its gotten too crowded!

If you are two miles away you likely have multiple other ways to get to Bethesda - you probably have public transit options and Uber/Lyft for a trip of that distance probably isn't much more than the cost of parking.  And biking is certainly an option for distances of 2 miles, particularly if you are lucky enough to live along the trail.

The crazy thing is parking is not hard in Bethesda - the only garage that is hard to find a space in is the Bethesda Row public parking garage and stupidly the county doesn't charge for parking in it on the weekend. The private garage under Bethesda Barracks or whatever it is called is always half empty and the other public parking garages, a couple of which are nearby, are never full on the weekends.

But suburbanites are lazy and think not only should parking be free but it should be super convenient because of course that is what the car ads all tell them.

Luckily after 30 years of bad development policies Montgomery County seems to understand the need to do things differently and in any case the densification of Bethesda means the business district won't need people to drive 2 miles to eat there because there will be ample people living downtown to support what is there.  So enjoy Montgomery Mall or Rio or wherever else you go to because you are too lazy to walk or pay for parking.[/quote]

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