Hiding behind Maryland and WMATA transit agency officials, the Montgomery County Council implemented a 33% reduction in vehicle capacity on Wisconsin Avenue (MD 355) in downtown Bethesda overnight. Trucks loudly roared up and down Wisconsin all night long, applying striping and lettering for bus-only lanes in both directions. The Trojan horse plan mimics the one utilized to get similar bus lanes long-sought by the Council on Georgia Avenue a few years ago. Using the identical gimmick of an insane, long-term closure of multiple Red Line subway stations between Glenmont and downtown Silver Spring in 2024, the Council stiff-armed Maryland Department of Transportation officials into suddenly declaring the bus lanes permanent. The Trojan horse is rolling down the west side of the Red Line this summer, as the Bethesda, Medical Center, and Grosvenor Metro stations will be closed from July 6 to September 6, 2026.
You can be sure that a similar announcement will be made by County, Maryland, and WMATA officials as the station reopening date approaches. The bus lanes plan is publicly sold - minus any public input - as a way to speed shuttle buses between the White Flint and Friendship Heights stations during the closure. In reality, it is a devious scheme to implement by fiat the Council's radical War-on-Cars agenda. Once again, our Marxist totalitarian-left Council is incapable of controlling its dictatorial impulses - but it is very capable of controlling your commute to work. And once again, we see the politicization of MDOT that began during the Larry Hogan administration. Twenty years ago, MDOT would have laughed about the idea of reducing Wisconsin Avenue - the most heavily traveled commuter route in the state - to two lanes in each direction, and dismissed such a proposal outright as total insanity. Post-Martin O'Malley administration, MDOT is amenable to any wacky scheme to advance a local political agenda or developer profit, no matter how contrary to engineering best practices it may be. Heckuva job, Brownie!
This does seem strange, and a recipe for total gridlock and frustration. What are the regulations concerning these lanes? Are they for bus use only during rush hour, or all the time?
ReplyDeleteThey want traffic through Bethesda to come to a screeching halt!
DeleteThe goal is to reduce vehicle capacity by 100%.
DeleteThey want you out of your cars, PERIOD.
Delete"You can be sure that. . ."
ReplyDeleteYou might well be right, Robert; but at this point, one month before those stations are closed, and three months away from their ultimate reopening, that's only conjecture on your part.
Absolutely moribund. They should call it the moribus in your honor Robert
ReplyDeleteTurbogem. Next they'll add moribike lanes too
DeleteOnce you get into downtown, those right hand lanes are also defacto Uber/Delivery/Drop off/pickup lanes for every building along Wisconsin Ave. Could make things challenging for the bus drivers.
ReplyDelete6:38 - It sure is.
DeleteDuring the red line closure from July 5 through September 6, the bus lanes will be 24/7, and heavily enforced. During this time they will study the impact of the bus lanes, and consider the implementation of rush hour only bus lanes and what the impact might be for future dedicated BRT bus lanes on M355. Just wait and see how busy this temporary bus bridge will be to understand the need for enhanced mass transit options like better Metro service, new light rail service, and yes even dedicated full time or part time BRT and local bus lanes.
ReplyDeleteThe temporary bus lanes are not 24/7 and it's a stretch to perceive them as heavily enforced.
DeleteRobert, insane is right. I'm rarely on GA Ave but noticed that recently. What I also noticed was cars not paying a lick of attention and driving in the bus lane anyway which is what will happen here. Bus lanes, bike lanes, etc are all anti-car and that's a fact. Have you seen Tyson's area lately? MD and MoCo refused to join Glen Younkin on his amazing infrastructure improvement on 495 through that corridor. A lot of good that did. It's a log jam in both directions, not because of his initiative but because of Maryland's lack thereof. No wonder people are moving
DeleteBetter not give the council any more ideas, otherwise we'll be down to one lane in each direction.
ReplyDelete8:31 am You'll have the usual nuts coming out of the woodwork saying you'll save their children's lives only if we get it to one car lane on Wisconsin.
DeleteIt's always about the children!
DeleteHave they designated permanent bike lanes in both directions yet?
Delete@1:22 PM Correct. Half of the county's budget goes to 'educate' the children!
DeleteWow. The two main arteries for getting from downtown Bethesda to the DC Line (Wisconsin Avenue and Little Falls Parkway) have now had their capacity reduced.
ReplyDeleteThe Master Plan from the Rockville Rulers is to ban vehicular traffic from Wisconsin Avenue and Little Falls Parkway altogether.
DeleteThe Master Plan from the MoCo Rulers is to ban vehicular traffic from Wisconsin Avenue and Little Falls Parkway altogether. FIXED IT FOR YOU!!! :{
Delete8:35 AM (Wise-congestive Avenue and Little Falls Gateway.
DeleteDoes this mean that all the bus drivers get to plow into and clear our locomotive cowcatcher style, all the illegally parked or standing UPS, FedEx, Amazon, RideShare & Food Delivery vehicles always clogging those lanes? If they can, I am in favor of the work!
ReplyDeleteclear *OUT
DeleteJust rode down Rockville Pike past Hank Dietle's and Georgetown Prep and literally overnight the whole right lane says bus lane only now. My guess is that this is going to continue to happen overnight, without notice, on many more thoroughfares in the area.
DeleteJAC, this is what a dictatorship looks like.
DeleteThe bus lane is temporary and will be restored to a parking/peak hour travel lane in early-September.
ReplyDeleteNo they are not. They will be permanent. That is a fact.
DeleteWrong Karnack.
DeleteCARNAC went out with Johnny Carson!
DeleteYou are dreaming.
DeleteI was shocked to see these lanes this morning. No warning or announcement not just online but even on a mobile digital road sign saying a new traffic pattern is coming soon. Adding the dedicated bus lane makes no sense. People are not going to stop driving their cars and now cars will just use neighborhood roads more. This ultimately will just cause more gridlock and cars idling on the road during rush hour. Drivers will also struggle knowing when to get in the bus lane to make right hand turns which will undoubtedly cause accidents.
ReplyDelete9:20am Yes and the reduction of lanes on Little Falls was just "temporary" to allow residents to get fresh air during COVID :)
ReplyDeleteLook at the mess on Little Falls now.
And now it has become "temporarily permanent."
Delete10:39 - Such a great point as Robert and others have mentioned so many times. Sadly, heard be no one. That will never change. When Trump's term is over, or when a Democrat gets in, many EO will be undone . That's part of the game. Here locally, that will never happen as MoCo is a one party, forever area. No one to check them and offer a different view or style leadership.
DeleteI drive Wisconsin Avenue south through Bethesda every morning to go to work. *Every* morning there are cars stopped in the right lane for various reasons, most often in front of the hotels. The availability of that lane during the morning rush hour is already non-existent. It is unlikely that the new bus-only lane will have any significant impact on southbound commuters in the morning.
ReplyDeleteThis morning I noticed that southbound Wisconsin Avenue necks down from two lanes to only one, to allow this new temporary bus lane to pass unimpeded adjacent to the big white shed that encloses the new south entrance to the Metro station, currently under construction in Elm Street. This pinch point of only thru lane southbound in the morning is going to a real nightmare. With Woodmont closed between Wisconsin and Strathmore for three months for a massive water-main valve replacement, a logical bypass to avoid this narrowing on Wisconsin will not be available.
ReplyDeleteAnother nightmare on Elm street!
DeleteYou have got to be [redacted] kidding me. For [redacted] sake, we don't have enough [redacted] traffic backups and headache-making gridlock to deal with already? [Redacted] "Hey! Let's have all the down-county vehicles spend twice as much time idling in traffic!! With gas prices at record highs, it's a n-brainer."
ReplyDeleteI know Robert keeps a clean comments section, but holy [redacted]. Old George and Little Falls are bad enough, but now they're strangling Wisconsin Ave, too? Time to buy a giant dump truck and fasten one of those highway plows to the front end. It's the only way we'll ever get through what's happening on the area roads.
This of course is temporary, for only two months during the construction of the Metro mezzanine and the closure of three stations on the red line. In theory, if the bus lanes become permanent, they would be only dedicated for buses during rush hour. More folks riding the Metrorail, MetroBus, Bethesda Circulator Buses, RideOn, Mega Bus, hotel shuttle buses, school buses and eventually M355 BRT could mean less cars on the road, and less need for three lanes. Even the Purple Line should take lots of cars and the M70 bus off the roads. It will be interesting to see how they enforce these bus lanes to make this work in the short term and perhaps during rush hour permanently.
DeleteNo parking on either side of 355 to accommodate the new bus lanes. And, no kidding, the lane closures are a month ahead of the closure of the Red line stations, so that's 3 months (at least) of reduced lanes.
Delete1:31 - "Even the Purple Line should take lots of cars and the M70 bus off the roads". You're kidding, right?
DeleteThat right lane is always lined with parked cars anyway, so nothing really changes here.
ReplyDeleteExactly 2:24, the 33 percent reduction cited is a bit hyperbolic, just sayin', Robert. The outside lane is usually intermittently occluded causing new jockeying every time, when its a dedicated lane and deliveries and / or jerks then block it, there's never enforcement, if necessary: you're back to two lanes anyway.
DeleteNot during rush hour, you are wrong.
DeleteGood. About time this area got some serious public transport investment. Zero need for 3 car lanes on wisconsin avenue between friendship and bradley blvd. Finally America is moving away from its perverse relationship with cars which plagues the country while the rest of the world laughs. Idiots
ReplyDeleteThey're not laughing with you, they're laughing at you. Just because you have yours, there are people who need to work and commute into Bethesda but it's all about you.
DeleteFrom implementing new bus lanes to “our Marxist totalitarian-left Council is incapable of controlling its dictatorial impulses” is quite a stretch. The OP must really have a thing against buses…
ReplyDeleteMarxism is when public transportation exists, clearly.
DeleteAmericans seem to think they have a Constitutional right to drive in single family cars with one driver no matter where they are going or what they are doing. Get over it. Mass transit be it bus, trolley, or subway is the way forward. What do you think they said in 1905 when they put in the first subway in New York? Oh, it will ruin car and buggy travel forever! Our society and especially places like Bethesda are inevitably getting denser and more crowded. Unlike the stupid bike lanes this will move more people. The future is coming whether we like it or not. We should prepare sensibly for it.
ReplyDeleteSaid the 'Council Rock' spokesperson with arrogant authority.
DeleteWell stated!
DeleteThe council shill says nobody needs cars so make it so no matter what. Like it or not, this is a car centric society and the left thinks spending other people's money is always the solution. 10B on the PL instead of a few extra J2 busses. How about CA high speed rail? Start taking responsibility for your failures because not everything can be Trump's fault.
Deletehow many times have you been on a bus in the last six months? O/U is .5 and I'll take the under
Delete10:48 - That's a bet I wouldn't take. If Leftists like 5:50 didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all.
Delete@5:50 PM The authors of the constitution were addressing the needs of hunters, gatherers and farmers.
DeleteThe county council is smiling at all their anti-car acolytes here. Wacko MoCo. Roads were made for automobiles. Let's just snarl the traffic thru Bethesda even more. Shocking that these elected officials get voted in time after time. Unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteBuses are a type of automobile.
Delete9:24 - You we're on the right track when you mentioned Maryland's failure to widen 495/270. As mentioned, the billions VA spent on the Tyson's area improvement is all for naught. Because of MD lack of leadership, that traffic is worse than it was before. Thanks! And the mention of buses being vehicles is silly.
Delete9:24 another example of poor argumentive skills, it app likely you're very frustrated. Get back to work or DJT will seek you out.
DeleteOur dubiously elected officials
DeleteAre just a bunch of jokers wild
As soon as they win an election
Rush in nooks and crannies to hide.
Actually, the roads were made for horse drawn wagons, not cars, which were not yet invented.
Delete@12:19 uhh... are you trying to say that a bus is not a vehicle?
Delete@12:19 I think I'm a little too old for him.
Delete@12:19 I didn’t say anything about a failure to widen 270 and 495… I was pointing out that that would be a much more massive and costly project than converting one lane on one block of downtown Bethesda into a bike lane. You’d have to rebuild on and off ramps and any additional lanes would cut into parking lots, and that’s not even touching on the bottlenecks created under overpasses and onto the bridge.
Delete1::22 - It's not about children or older people or disabled or dogs. It's about anti-car period.
ReplyDelete"I'll take Spot the Shill for 600, please, Alex."
ReplyDelete"This of course is temporary. . . More folks riding the Metrorail, MetroBus. . . could mean less cars on the road, and less need for three lanes. . . It will be interesting to see how they enforce these bus lanes . . . perhaps during rush hour permanently"
"Who is @1:31?"
The paid council shill who doesn't own a car so therefore we don't need to either.
Delete6:06 - Probably Marc Elrich. Joker in Chief.
Delete@9:13 AM With his Mock-mobile.
DeleteIt’s just me, not-a-shill suggesting bus lanes can be helpful to take cars off the road. The worst case scenario is that the far right lanes will be temporary rush only bus lanes, with restricted loading, drop offs and parking at other times. As others have commented, not sure how this will be enforced. But in theory, this will help traffic flow during 2 hours in the morning and late afternoon on weekdays only.
ReplyDeleteAnd this time y'all are crying about... buses. Never change, NIMBY's.
ReplyDeleteYou must be the future Purple Line rider!
Delete@9:29 yes.
DeleteEveryone can agree it makes sense to have the lanes temporarily given the number of people the buses will have to move every hour.
ReplyDeleteI think it will be problematic once the lanes get to downtown Bethesda because delivery cars and trucks use that lane.
Main issue is that they're open to making this permanent which makes no sense. No one is asking for that.
Boy if we could only get a separate Bike lane as well that would be perfect !
ReplyDeleteI see what you did there.
DeleteIf you cannot get to NIH (both 355 and Old Georgetown Road won't have capacity to handle traffic any more), time to close NIH down and turn it into a giant senior housing complex. Only condition is that residents are not allowed to own cars.
ReplyDeleteBoth 355 and 187 have been transformed into obstacle courses for drivers.
Delete6:46PM I'm surprised someone has not pitched that idea. Except I think it would be moving NIH to Germantown and building EYA luxury townhomes on the Bethesda campus. It would somehow be pitched as part of the solution to the affordable housing crisis, as it always is.
ReplyDeleteThe next logical step is to convert both arteries into urban dog parks.
ReplyDelete@JAC He'll finish the job:
ReplyDeletehttps://marylandmatters.org/2026/06/06/an-endorsement-parade-u-turn-an-electric-bill-break-sort-of-in-political-notes/
10:22 - Jawando is the best they have? Continue the job ruining the area and his status quo of race baiting. I agree.
DeleteHe is aka The Lord of the Purse Strings!
ReplyDeleteHas anyone had any luck with MCDOT getting them to repair potholes?
ReplyDeleteIf it's a numbered road then you need to contact SHA which for Bethesda/Chevy Chase is the Gaithersburg State Highway Administration station.
DeleteIt is the intersection of Western Avenue and Friendship Boulevard.
DeleteIt is not a numbered road. DC will not touch it because they are only responsible for the two Eastbound lanes. MCDOT claims it belongs to SHA! Apparently, is no man's land until there is a serious accident.
85 comments and counting and few if any strongly in favor. This is soft tyranny plain and simple. The one party cabal, that stupid people allowed in office, are doing things to suit their wacko view that no one wants or asked for. This doesn't help improve your life one bit. Rather, it makes it harder. Even those who voted in these fools don't want this. They are literally removing travel lanes to main thoroughfares that we desperately need to move around in an already gridlocked part of the country. They just made our traffic and commute worse. Huh? This is a big country and we can move anywhere we want. Not all places are like this and smart people pick up and go. And governors in very liberal states laugh about millionaires leaving. Stop voting for these people. It'll get worse. Marc Elrich was furious Robin Ficker's ballot initiative on term limits passing. What's he gonna do? He's gonna run and win (again, stupid voters) for an at-large seat on the MoCo Council. It never ends. Wake up.
DeleteI was given an SHA number to call by MC 311.
DeleteI called it 301-513-7300 but no one picks up and you cannot leave a message!
11:06 - Robert, it's absolutely what Mark Levin termed "Soft Tyranny". It's beyond outrageous.
ReplyDeleteAn elementary school teacher in charge of the most populous county in the free state.
ReplyDeleteThe drama in these comments is insane. What a privileged life one must lead to think that the introduction of a bus lane is "soft tyranny" and a "dictatorship".
ReplyDeleteTake a deep breath. You'll live. It'll be ok. Nobody is coming to pry your car away from you. The scary buses won't hurt you.
7:51 - There's a much broader and scarier point here that you're missing. Read Alexis de Tocqueville who coined the term soft tyranny and all will be revealed. By the way, it was a thrill driving in the empty bus only lane on GA Ave last night. I'll be doing that regularly on Rockville Pike as well. They will be "policing" those lanes? Don't think so.
DeleteSo the introduction of a bus lane didn't negatively affect you or hinder your movement. That just proves my point.
DeleteDo you have tinted windows?
ReplyDelete