Plans to add 1,200 parking spaces at the Red Line’s Glenmont Metro station will take another step forward Thursday.

That’s when the Metro Board is expected to approve the location of a new $18 million, six-story garage, which would be placed on the west side of Georgia Avenue, across the street from the current garage between Glen Allen and Layhill roads.

The more than 1,780 spaces at the station “fill to the brim in the morning,” said Steven Taubenkibel, a Metro spokesman. “It so happens that the Glenmont parking garage is the No. 1 lot in our system with a wait-list” of nearly 400 people, he said.

The Montgomery County Council approved the site in May, saying it was more cost-effective than a proposed 930-space, $21 million expansion of the current eastern lot, said Montgomery County Council Member Nancy Floreen, who heads the Council’s Transportation and Environment Committee.

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“It is a pretty comprehensive solution and allows us to move forward with the intersection improvement that is associated with the fire station,” she said.

Metro appears ready to approve the new location despite the views of its neighbors. The majority of comments the transit system received regarding the parking upgrade were in favor of the expansion, not the garage. According to Metro documents, the public comments against the new garage cited the noise already expected from construction of a fire station planned for the same lot.

This is the third Metro garage Montgomery County has funded, with some support from the state, Floreen said. As with the Shady Grove and Grosvenor-Strathmore garages, more than half of the Glenmont project will be funded by parking fees from those locations, which are higher than those at other facilities, according to county officials.

After final design and cost approvals by the county and Metro, the garage could be finished as early as late fall or winter of 2008.

A public meeting on the fire station, which is relocating north from the corner of Georgia Avenue and Randolph Road, will be held Oct. 3, said county official Natalie Cantor.

Glenmont Ridership

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cgoodman@dcexaminer.com