Montgomery County seeks input on the future of the Norfolk Avenue streatery

The Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) is soliciting community input into what the future of the Norfolk Ave streatery in Bethesda should be in a survey that’s open through January 31st.

Planners established the zone in 2020 as an experiment in creating an outdoor, car-free, community space in Bethesda. Spanning two blocks on Norfolk Avenue between Cordell Avenue and Del Ray Avenue, the streatery replaced a former traffic corridor with outdoor dining, concerts, and community events such as a Winter Wonderland.

Streateries: a popular but endangered species

The Norfolk Avenue streatery is one of several similar amenities that were initially created by MCDOT in June 2020. The creation of the streateries, which also included locations on Woodmont Avenue in Bethesda, Newell Street in Silver Spring, and Price Avenue in Wheaton, coincided with the reopening of outdoor dining for restaurants during the pandemic in the same month.

Though their creation was initially driven by the constraints of the pandemic, streateries were also recognized as valuable community spaces, with Jeff Burton, the Executive Director of the Bethesda Urban Partnership, saying, “It’s also to provide a place where the community can come together, enjoy the community and heal through this process.” The amenities were extended over the course of the next two years, though some such as that on Newell Street had been initially intended as only temporary measures.

As the landscape of the pandemic shifted and demand for outdoor dining decreased, MCDOT began exploring what the future of the streateries should be. This process has been driven by community feedback, with MCDOT Director Chris Conklin stating in August 2022 that this input was necessary due to the impact of the amenities, which “have undeniably changed how we look at the public right of way.”

Not all of these experiments proved universally popular, with MCDOT describing feedback for the Newell Street initiative as mixed. While some residents appreciated the open space that it provided to the neighborhood, others suggested that it led to increased public drinking, smoke, and loud music nearby apartment buildings in the neighborhood. MCDOT transitioned Newell Street in September 2022 to a “Shared Street,” which would typically be open to traffic but could be closed for community events. No formal survey preceded this transition, with former Montgomery County Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson stating that he was not aware of any survey being conducted and Conklin stating that the survey that had provided much of the feedback dated to 2020. The results of the 2020 survey indicated that a majority of local residents supported keeping the street closed to traffic, and at the time it was conducted, those results had been viewed as proof by the County and the Parks Department that the initiative was successful.

The Woodmont Avenue streatery was temporarily closed for six weeks in September 2022 to allow for the construction of the Woodmont Avenue CycleTrack, a protected bikeway linking large parts of Downtown Bethesda. Montgomery County’s Bethesda Chevy-Chase Regional Services Office and the Bethesda Urban Partnership took the opportunity to conduct a survey to solicit feedback from local residents and businesses on what the future of the streatery should be.

The survey results showed that the Woodmont Avenue streatery had broad popular support, with a majority of local residents and roughly half of local business owners being in favor of keeping it a car-free dining area. However, half of local business owners objected, expressing a desire for more space for deliveries and saying that the closed street made it less likely for drivers in the area to see and decide to visit their businesses. MCDOT opted in October 2022 to reopen one lane of traffic in each direction through the corridor, create a curbside pickup zone, and to limit outdoor dining to a smaller part of the avenue.

From here to streaternity?

Out of the four in-street dining amenities created by MCDOT in 2020, currently only the Price Avenue streatery in Wheaton and the Norfolk Avenue streatery in Bethesda remain closed to traffic. The Montgomery County Planning Department has indicated that it is in favor of continuing the Norfolk Avenue streatery’s existence, with deputy director Robert Kronenberg stating in December that the street being closed to traffic was currently “more desirable” than allowing cars to return to the street.

But the streatery’s future is still in question. MCDOT’s decision regarding it will be informed by the results of the ongoing survey, which includes the following options:

• Remove the Streetery [MCDOT’s spelling] and go back to the way it was before.
• Keep the Streetery on Norfolk Avenue as it currently exists.
• Be more ambitious within the current extents (Del Ray Avenue to St. Elmo Avenue), re-envisioning the design to something more permanent.
• Be more ambitious and go beyond the current extents, re-envisioning the design to something more permanent and extending it further along Norfolk Avenue (potentially extending to Rugby Avenue and Woodmont Avenue).
• Other (please specify)

Bethesda residents, workers, business owners, visitors and MCDOT face a choice on whether to promote a car-oriented urban landscape, or to continue the experiment in turning streets into community areas; and if the latter, what it should look like. MCDOT’s survey is open until January 31.