Where land is available, there's no guarantee that agencies can put it to use quickly. The MTA's Greene said it takes an average of two to three years to get all the approvals for expanding a surface lot.
For a parking garage, it can take up to seven years to go through the process of environmental impact statements, public hearings, budget approvals, design and construction, she said.
The State Highway Administration, which offers about 12,000 spaces in park-and-rides around the state, faces many of the same hurdles when one of its lots fills up, said Doug Simmons, a deputy administrator.
In some cases, overflowing park-and-ride lots lie within a few miles of others that are far from full. For instance, two lots with 686 spaces at Route 32 and Broken Land Parkway in Columbia have filled to overflowing despite four expansions. The lots are only a few miles from a less crowded park-and-ride at U.S. 29 and Route 216. But persuading commuters to change their habits is a challenge.
"To move somebody to another lot and take them out of their normal travel path, that's tricky," Simmons said.
While transportation agencies scramble to find way to provide more spaces, frustration grows - for commuters and residents of neighborhoods that are forced to accommodate the overflow parking.
Rick Gonsalves, a Baltimore resident who catches the MARC train at Halethorpe to commute to his job in Washington, said that when he parked on Avon Court, residents "turned into some kind of vigilante group" and "ran me out of here."
Because he works a later-than-normal shift, Gonsalves catches a train that departs when the MTA lot and other nearby spaces are full. So he said he was forced to look for a spot on residential streets. He thought he had found a good solution when he discovered Avon Court. But when he parked there one day recently, police were summoned after he was confronted by outraged neighbors.
The police upheld his right to park there, Gonsalves said, but when he returned to his car that night he found a scratch that hadn't been there before. He said he has since found a place to park a few minutes away.
Rodney Sparrow, a resident of Avon Court, acknowledged that the spaces were legally open to all but said that commuter parking had become "a major problem."
"They have zero respect for the people who live on this street," Sparrow said. He and other residents are taking steps to petition Baltimore County to restrict all-day parking to those who live in the neighborhood.
