Bethesda Elm Street Garage

Very nice garage in the middle of Bethesda Row. Great!

Either instructions are intentionally unclear or no one who manages this garage has had to pay for parking here.

To pay on Park Mobile you have to enter the zone number first then the space number. There are numbers for every space yet the zone numbers are not listed nearby. Once you find a pay station (not a single sign showing where those are) you get the zone number then hopefully you've managed to keep track of your correct space number.

Bad design for users

Zero star. Just spent over $150 dining, helping local business. Came back and got $45 parking ticket. I have parked here before when the machine still dispense tickets and the instruction were clear about the rate. This time I went there was no gate no ticket and also NO INSTRUCTION. So, i thought it changed to free parking after covid. It is a really a disinformation. This seems like a montgomery county scam. Rockville town center still issue ticket and you pay for how long you park. What kind of parking garage issue a parking ticket OMG, it is a place for paid parkings.

I love this garage, clean and spacious with an easy way to pay. Don’t forget to remember your number ;)

I parked here on Saturday night from 6:20 PM to 7:35 PM and when trying to exit, the ticket reader showed that I owed $3.95 which was wrong because parking is FREE at this garage all day on Saturdays (and Sundays) and this is not a new rule. Furthermore, this charge would not even make sense on a weeknight as the rate is $1.75 per hour (and I was parked for only 1 hour and 15 minutes). Fortunately, I pressed the "Help" button on the ticket reader at the gate and the parking attendant let me out. But it is ridiculous because they are scamming people who are unaware and/or in a rush.

This is an amazing place. You drive your car into a building, park in a numbered space, and leave your car to rest for awhile. Monday through Friday, you need to put money in a big machine. Saturday and Sunday, it's free. If all goes well, your car will still be there when you return. If you like, you can drive around and look at the other cars. But you can't trade for something better unless the other driver agrees.

Edit: I received an email from the parking administration in Bethesda as to my issues with this parking garage and they informed me that modifications to the short term parking have been made. I recently went by to test it and you can now add a few quarters and park for less than 2 hours in the Short-Term parking spots. I am updating my review but leaving the text from before.

I recently had a very negative experience at the Bethesda Ave Parking Garage #57. I frequently park in this garage to pick up either breakfast or lunch from several of the local shops and don't often park for more than 15 minutes at a time. I was surprised when I pulled in this morning and took out my normal 2 quarters with which to pay and realized the coin meters were gone in favor of a new digital system. I was fine with this change until I went to use my normal 2 quarters to pay for the short amount of time I would be parked before heading to work. I discovered that the digital parking machines would not let you enter any time less than 1 hour (which costs $1.25) I am not willing to pay almost 4x as much to park for the same amount of time. When I called the service line for the parking system I was informed that if you were paying for a short term spot, you were required to pay for the full hour minimum. I was also informed I could "possibly" park in the long term spots for less than hour stays.

This makes no sense on several levels, such as why would Long term be for shorter parking stays or why wouldn't the people empowered to inform people of these changes be able to say them with confidence. Additionally there is absolutely no indication on the digital machine that this is an option and there is no signage pointing people staying less than an hour to seek out these, counter-intuitively named, long term spots.
This feels like a blatant attempt to increase the profitability of the parking garages while also eliminating important jobs.
I know several other people were also upset about this change as they approached the same worker I did while I was asking him who to contact about this.

Above ground garage with 7'6" clearance (no trailers). Most of the garages in the area are below ground and have low clearances (some as low as 6'3") so this is a good option if you have a taller truck or SUV