The Empty Parking Lots a Few Blocks From Kensington's Full Ones

The Town of Kensington paid consultants to count every parking space in its study area, and the total came to 2,895. At the busiest moment of their spring 2026 field counts, a Wednesday afternoon, only 45% of those spaces were taken. On Wednesday evening the figure dropped to 28%. Yet the same report found Kensington Parkway at 100% and the Johnson's Shopping Center lots over capacity on a Saturday afternoon. The study's own summary says "scarcity and availability exist side-by-side, often within the same block."

The Town of Kensington Parking Analysis and Management Study by Walker Consultants is dated October 15, 2026, and was presented to the Town Council on October 21. Its conclusion is that the town's parking trouble is "a distribution, timing, and management problem more than a system-wide parking supply shortage." In practice, the open spaces are in places most drivers never think to check, and the busy hours fall when the rules have stopped applying.

Saturday morning, when the market takes the train lot

The Kensington Farmers' Market runs every Saturday, year-round, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Historic Train Station, 3701 Howard Avenue. To make room for it, the MARC station lot is reserved from Friday at 8 p.m. until Saturday at 1 p.m. and opens to the public after that. That takes one of the town's few public lots out of service during its busiest stretch of the week.

The consultants counted on Saturday, May 16, 2026, and that day produced the highest on-street occupancy of the whole study. Here is how the afternoon count looked:

The overflow went onto side streets. Fawcett Street south of Mitchell Street and Carroll Place reached 80% occupancy that Saturday, compared with 15% at the matching Wednesday count. The consultants judged that the market reservation "likely contributed to spillover onto nearby residential streets." They also called the market "an important community asset supported by the parking system."

That Saturday, the former M&T Bank lot on Montgomery Avenue was close to the market and mostly empty. The study puts that down to the lot's recent switch to public parking, which few drivers yet knew about. That lot is about to matter more, as the section on Montgomery Avenue below explains.

After four o'clock, the curb fills up

Weekday parking follows a different schedule. Posted time limits in Kensington end by 5:00 or 5:30 p.m. on weekdays and don't apply on weekends. The study adds that enforcement ends even earlier, because the town's one Code Enforcement Officer spends about 20% of their time on parking and wraps up parking duties in the late afternoon.

The Wednesday counts show the result. Between afternoon and evening, public lots went from 58% full to 14%. Over the same hours, four-hour on-street spaces went from 65% to 84%. The study ties the jump to the end of the enforcement window, around 4 p.m. Once the rules stop, drivers leave the lots and park on the curb nearest their destination.

The evening destinations are easy to name. The study lists BabyCat Brewery, whose taproom is at 10241 Kensington Parkway, as a major evening draw. Other names in its hotspot maps include Frankly Pizza at 10417 Armory Avenue and Marathon Deli at 10619 Connecticut Avenue. Marathon is part of the newer Kensington Crossing center at Connecticut Avenue and Plyers Mill Road. The study says that center's private lot is "experiencing spillover associated with recent restaurant expansion."

Kent Street shows the pattern most clearly. Westbound, it was 8% full on Saturday afternoon and 62% full that evening. The study connects the jump to evening demand from BabyCat and nearby businesses. It also notes that Kent Street is narrow enough that cars parked on both sides leave room for only one lane of traffic.

How long cars stay

Turnover is the other half of the story. The consultants say a healthy commercial curb space turns over four or more times a day. Howard Avenue came in between 2.43 and 3.43 vehicles per space. The four-hour stretch of Kensington Parkway turned over just 0.43 vehicles per space, far below that benchmark. On Fawcett Street, weekday stays averaged up to 3.23 hours, and 31% of vehicles stayed past the posted limit.

Those slow-turnover blocks are right beside the Kensington Parkway shops, and a space that doesn't turn over isn't available to the next shopper. That turnover problem is behind one of the study's main proposals, covered in the last section.

The lot on Mitchell Street that stays half empty

The town's best-kept parking secret is next to Town Hall. The Town Hall lot, Lot 44 in the study, has 58 unrestricted public spaces plus eight town-designated four-hour spaces during weekday daytime hours. Local stakeholders told the consultants it is "a known but underutilized public parking destination." The counts back that up. On the Saturday evening when Johnson's Shopping Center's front lot was at 103%, the Town Office lot was under 27% full.

Montgomery County's Kensington Farmers Market location page lists three free parking options for market days:

1. Town Hall, 3710 Mitchell Street
2. The Kensington Train Station, 10417 Howard Avenue
3. The public lot at St. Paul Street and Metropolitan Avenue

Lot 19, which the town owns, is on the north side of the tracks along Kensington Parkway. It has no time limit during the day, though overnight parking is prohibited from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. The study counts six publicly accessible lots holding 214 spaces in all. That is a small share of the town's total, but at peak times many of those spaces sat open while the curb outside BabyCat or Johnson's was full.

Montgomery Avenue gets about 35 more spaces

The town bought the former M&T Bank lot at 10415 Montgomery Avenue in January 2026. It is being rebuilt as a public lot of about 36 spaces, with delivery expected in late 2026 and EV-readiness included in the design. The current lot has no time limit.

At its October 21 meeting, the Council adopted Resolution R-14-2026. It authorizes the town manager to accept an asbestos abatement proposal for the site from ACM Services, priced at $22,490 and not to exceed $24,000, subject to review by the Town Attorney. In the meeting recording, Council Member Conor Crimmins said M&T is trying to sell its branch building on Howard and Montgomery avenues. He said the lot would hold around 35 spaces and that he expected it to be "online well before" the building has a new occupant. He told the bank the town would share a timeline at the November meeting. That meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, November 18.

The study also suggests that local businesses steer employees to the new lot as a first step for long-stay parking, before the town considers any employee permit or fee. If employers follow through, some all-day cars could move off Kensington Parkway and Fawcett Street.

What the study proposes

All of the following are recommendations. The Council has not voted to adopt them. In the same recording, Council Member Ann Lichter said the meeting had been a Q&A on the report. She said the next step is for the parking task force and town staff to review it and come back with recommendations for the near term.

The near-term proposals that would change street parking include:

• Changing selected four-hour spaces on Kensington Parkway and Fawcett Street to two hours. Four-hour limits would stay where longer stays still make sense.
• Setting one weekday time-limit window, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., across the commercial area, with enforcement hours shifted to match.
• Adding a 15-minute pickup and drop-off space on Howard Avenue.
• Giving warnings for first-time violations that aren't safety-related.
• Adding a van-accessible space in Town Lot 19.

The plan also calls for a single parking brand, directional wayfinding signs, and a mobile-friendly parking page with a map linked from the Town and Explore Kensington websites. It names St. Paul's United Methodist Church, Brookewood School, and the Jubilee Association of Maryland site as possible partners for shared-parking pilots, pending outreach to the owners. It does not call for paid parking across town. The study says plainly that "the data does not support systemwide paid parking," and it recommends holding off on mobile pay technology until lower-cost measures have been tried.

For now, the rules on the signs are the ones in force. The occupancy figures here come from the consultants' field counts in May and June 2026, not from live data. On a Saturday market morning, the County's own list of free parking starts with the Town Hall lot at 3710 Mitchell Street.

If you'd like to know how parking and a short walk to Howard Avenue work on a particular Kensington street, Kerri Murphy is happy to go over it with you. Let's Connect.