Long-term parkers in a popular Bethesda parking garage will soon have to find a new place to put their vehicles.
The Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) is advising those who park in its Woodmont-Rugby Garage (Garage 35) that 119 parking spaces in the western portion of the facility will be permanently closed on or about May 2 as part of the 2nd District police station project.
The police station is being built on a parking lot next to the garage and officers will park their vehicles and store equipment in the section of the garage closed to the public. The Rugby Avenue entrance to the garage will be available for police use only.
MCDOT left fliers announcing the date of the long-planned closure on vehicles parked in the garage this week.
The loss of parking spaces is likely to have the biggest impact on long-term parkers, including many who live in apartment complexes on nearby Battery Lane. Of the 119 parking spaces that will be lost for public use, 22 are short-term spaces and 97 are long-term.
MCDOT said 30 of the remaining long-term spaces in the garage will be converted to short-term for a net increase of eight short-term spaces.
MCDOT advised that “some long-term parkers will need to use other parking facilities in the Woodmont Triangle area.”
Those facilities include the Auburn-Del Ray Garage (Garage 36), which has 631 long-term spaces and is often nearly empty. The MCDOT flier also suggested the Maple Avenue Lot (Lot 25) across Wisconsin Avenue and various private parking facilities.
The MCDOT flier advising of the parking garage partial closure.