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]

Not np, but it's so lucrative that there is constant turn over in the Bethesda area of restaurants and other businesses.  Why?  The planners made a decision to limit parking spaces while building their infill high rises, most of which are either vacant or house families, which is not what these genious' thought would happen.  The upper class non children young professionals never came, at least not in the numbers they had imagined.  What did happen was lots of famliies who understandably do not budget for eating out in Bethesda.  So you should care that those that have disposable income can patronize those businesses so they don't fail, you should care.  I'm in the business and I have had tenants tell me they don't care about parking because they want customers to use uber so they can drink more.  This line of mentality will not support family nights out, I personally do not drink when my younger children are out with us, just a personal choice.  Urban types are nice, but they are not at this point in time substaining the businesses.  The money is just not there.[/quote]

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