GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST!

MORE DOWNTOWN BETHESDA

PUBLIC PARKING TO CLOSE!

Sometime this month, the public lots across from Barnes and Noble at Bethesda Row are scheduled to close. This will cause a parking catastrophe. The only actions taken by the county to help have been to place a space-vacancy sign at the Bethesda Ave. garage, designate more spaces for Bethesda Row patrons within it, and suggest that the public park in distant garages/lots and take the Bethesda Circulator back to Bethesda Row.

Now we find out that an entire one of those lots is closing around February 15!! Forever!!!

Great Caesar's Ghost! Who is making these decisions?

Public Parking Lot 39 on Del Ray Avenue is being sold to a for-profit developer for mixed-use development. Now, that's all fine and dandy, but this is going from bad to worse.

And raising a lot of questions.

In my opinion, the imminent parking situation is going to have a far greater impact on visitors and businesses than we are being told.

The fact that the county owned all 3 parking facilities makes that reality unconscionable.

Why did the county council and Planning Board approve the sale of the Bethesda lots without first developing a real-world alternative parking plan?

Second, why would they time a third lot's sale, condemnation and redevelopment approval for precisely the month in which we are to lose the other two lots?

If the BCC Chamber of Commerce has said something about this, it certainly wasn't very loud.

I think residents, patrons, and business owners and employees in downtown Bethesda deserve better.