Suburban Montgomery County MD eliminates parking requirements in its downtown areas

[Cirrus]

If a suburb can do it, your city damn well can too.

Originally Posted by Greater Greater Washington

Montgomery won't make (some) businesses fund parking anymore

Builders in downtown Bethesda, Silver Spring, and Wheaton are now free to build as little parking as they want, without violating zoning rules or paying extra taxes. The change eliminates a major subsidy to driving and will help these suburban centers evolve into walkable urban areas.

Bethesda:

Bossi on flickr

[202_Cyclist]

That photo would look so much better with the Purple line connecting to Bethesda.

What does this mean for the MD side of Friendship Hts?

[fleonzo]

I grew up there (Silver Spring/ Rockville, etc)! My in-laws still live down there. Nice place....I was there about two weeks ago and had lunch at the Cuban Restaurant (use to be a Chinese place) in "downtown" Silver Spring. The place has changed a lot over the years. Not really sure I'd call it Urban but certainly has a town center type feel. Like I said, nice place.

[Cirrus]

Wouldn't be a DC thread without fleonzo chiming in to dig about how lame it is. Got it, man.

[fleonzo]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Wouldn't be a DC thread without fleonzo chiming in to dig about how lame it is. Got it, man.

HAHAHA... no, not lame (anymore)! In fact, it's actually fascinating to see the changes! You know, I actually grew up watching the downtown Silver Spring Metro being built? The funny thing is that the part where I had lunch use to be a big open (parking lot) area and now it's all closed in. I literally got lost trying to find the place I use to go so often.

Don't get me work Cirrus....There are some parts of the Suburban area that has come along way but they're not really city in the literal context. DC itself, sometimes doesn't feel like a city (at certain hours or places) but it has charm in a way that Silver Spring, Rockville, Bethesda, Arlington, or even Tyson's doesn't have. BTW- back before leaving DC (in '96) I nearly bought a condo on K St for- get this....$79K! I've been kicking myself ever since as I would have loved keeping 'til now as a place to stay when I go down to visit family!

[C.]

Great news for Montgomery County! I always liked the inclusionary housing policies of the community, and it looks like they're on the forefront again. Congrats!!

Sometimes it's not community NIMBYs but old school city planners themselves that caution against the removal of parking minimums in dense urban areas. Hopefully they will look to Montgomery Co. and will see that it did not result in the Apocalypse.

There is no reason why New York City should have minimum parking requirements. They have been reduced in limited areas of the city from what was originally prescribed in the 50s and 60s, A time when it was believed that everyone would be driving everywhere.

Mayor de Blasio gets it as he realizes that minimum parking requirements contributes to the construction cost of housing, and sees it as the hindered it is to encourage the creation of more affordable housing. Hopefully he's able to push his planning department to drop parking minimums all together, or at least for developments with a stone throws away from a subway line!!

[C.]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Wouldn't be a DC thread without fleonzo chiming in to dig about how lame it is. Got it, man.

I honestly did not get that impression when I read fleonzo's post.

[fleonzo]

Originally Posted by CIA

I honestly did not get that impression when I read fleonzo's post.

Thanks CIA!
BTW- if you're familiar with that area- the one big problem with Montgomery County, with all the growth over the past decade and half, has been their main road arteries extending north westward (i.e. Georgia Ave, Wisc. Ave, Conn Ave, etc...) which run into stretches where the bottlenecks are unbearable during rush hour! For the local folks down there, please confirm. There are stretches where there's no way to widen the roads anymore and all these stretches have stop lights. I don't know if this has ever been addressed but perhaps its time to put barriers in the middle islands as to prevent left turns on some of the longer stretches. North NJ does this but the set up in NJ is a nightmare itself when it comes to trying to make U turns or missing an exit. My two cents on what could be improved although I know the purpose of making these centers more dense is not to make it easier to drive to and from them but the hard truth is that most people, down there, still drive to most places and going from Silver Spring to Rockville or Wheaton really sucks during certain hours!

[jpdivola]

It will be interesting to see how this works in the long term. Montgomery County is a weird hybrid of vast sprawling cul-de-sac neighborhoods and then a few pockets of disconnected walkable urban zones. With less parking, will the "suburbanites" take transit to the "urban zones" or will they simply drive to the sprawly parts of the county (which is the vast majority)?

I remember living with a super-granola pro-transit environmentalist type in MoCo about 10 years ago. He lived a little north of Wheaton and worked a little north of Rockville. His choice was either drive 20 min or take a bus for an hour to get to work. Naturally, he drove a lot, especially on the weekends. We both agree Pub Transit is great for getting into downtown DC or getting to the local "urban zone". But on the whole the county was just too big and sprawling to ever be effectively served by mass transit.

On the whole, Montogmery County/ DC area in general is doing a good job with smart growth. But, I wish they were working from a stronger urban base.

[mhays]

The workers are coming from the whole metro, just like the workers in the DC core. Transit is better in the DC core, but the parking ratios will presumably be higher too. It's also not just transit, but also the ability to live in the same district and walk. Or bike, carpool, whatever.

They're simply giving developers more freedom to react to the market. Maybe today they'll build a little less parking, and in a decade they'll build substantially less than that.