Wayne Avenue Closes at Night Through Thanksgiving. Getting Home Is the Hard Part.

"I came the other day to get my check, and I literally had to park somewhere else and walk over here." That's how a bartender at Ivela Lounge described a September night downtown to The Wash. It was one of several stories the outlet collected from late-night workers along Bonifant Street. Several workers told the reporter that the closures begin partway through business hours. Getting into downtown is easy. Leaving at closing time is what got hard.

The next five weeks follow the same pattern, but closer to the center of town. Starting on or about October 25, Purple Line crews will close Wayne Avenue overnight in stages so they can string the overhead catenary wires that will power the trains. Each stage moves west, and the last one shuts the Wayne Avenue and Fenton Street intersection. If you live downtown, east along Wayne, or in Fenton Village, the trip home after dinner is the part to plan.

The closures move toward the center of downtown

Here is the schedule the Maryland Transit Administration has posted on its construction updates page. Every date is listed as "on or about."

The two November stages won't happen at the same time. MTA says the Cedar-to-Dale closure won't be in place while the Fenton-to-Cedar section is closed. For each stage, MTA says residents and pedestrians will keep their access.

The last stage has already moved twice. When The Wash reported in mid-September, the Wayne and Fenton closure had been pushed from Sept. 14 to Oct. 5 through Oct. 15. Then Source of the Spring reported on Oct. 7 that it had been postponed again, to late November. In that article, John Undeland, communications director for Purple Line Transit Partners, said "weather and other unforeseen issues may impact these dates." Plan around these windows the same way you'd plan around a forecast.

A 9 p.m. start means your car matters more than your reservation

The first three stages begin at 9 p.m. Most dinners downtown are still going at that hour. Whatever you parked next to at 7 may be on the other side of a barricade by the time you pay the check. That's the problem the Bonifant Street workers described, and this fall it reaches Wayne Avenue.

Downtown's county garages don't all have entrances on Wayne. According to Montgomery County's Silver Spring parking facilities list, the entrances are:

• Wayne Avenue Garage, 921 Wayne Ave.: on Wayne Avenue and Ellsworth Avenue
• Town Square Garage, 801 Ellsworth Dr.: on Ellsworth Drive and Roeder Road
• Fenton Street Village Garage, 8110 Fenton St.: on Fenton Street and Silver Spring Avenue
• Bonifant-Dixon Garage, 1101 Bonifant Dr.: on Dixon Avenue

None of MTA's notices say any garage itself will close. If you use the Wayne Avenue Garage on a closure night, the Ellsworth Avenue entrance gives you another way out. Town Square's entrances aren't on Wayne at all. The Dixon Avenue and Bonifant Street intersection stays closed through October so crews can finish laying track on Bonifant. MTA says access to the garage and to the businesses on Bonifant will be maintained.

You'll find the restaurants along this corridor right where the work is. Washingtonian's 2026 Silver Spring guide lists Firepan Korean BBQ at 962 Wayne Ave., with a weekday happy hour that runs until 7 p.m. The same guide lists Mandalay at 930 Bonifant St., back at its old location, and The Breakfast Club, an all-day breakfast spot at 8240 Fenton St. If you go to Firepan for happy hour, you'll be heading home well before the 9 p.m. barricades. Late-night places like Langano Ethiopian Bar & Restaurant and Ivela Lounge feel the closures more, because their busiest hours overlap with the work. A Langano server told The Wash that customers often can't find a spot nearby and don't want to pay for parking "because they just want to grab their food."

If you take the bus home, here's where it will and won't stop

The last stage moves later at night, from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. That spares most dinners, but late Ride On trips will reroute. Source of the Spring reports that routes 15, 16, 17, 20, and 28 will detour while the Wayne and Fenton intersection is closed.

The same article lists stop-by-stop changes for the two routes most downtown riders use:

1. Route 15 toward Takoma Langley Transit Center goes around the intersection by way of Georgia Avenue, Colesville Road, and Spring Street, which becomes Cedar Street. It skips the eastbound Wayne and Fenton stop, #27060, and the stop at 824 Wayne Ave., #27061. Board instead at Silver Spring Transit Center Bay 222, #17484, or eastbound Wayne and Cedar, #27062.
2. Route 15 toward Silver Spring Transit Center follows the same loop in reverse. It skips westbound Wayne and Fenton, #27100, and westbound Wayne and Georgia, #16080. Riders can use westbound Wayne and Cedar, #27098, or Bay 222.
3. Route 16 toward Takoma goes by way of Georgia Avenue and Silver Spring Avenue to Fenton Street. It skips southbound Fenton and Colesville, #16038, and southbound Fenton and Ellsworth, #16011. The replacement stop is northbound Georgia and Ellsworth, #14677.

Your calendar against the closure dates

With the stages and detours mapped, the dates on downtown's fall calendar become easier to plan around. Most of the big events fall just outside the closure hours.

1. Sunday, Oct. 25: Silver Spring Fall-O-Ween runs from noon to 5 p.m. at Veterans Plaza, with costume parades for kids and pets, vendors, and free admission. It ends several hours before the first overnight closure is scheduled to begin that night. Visit Montgomery has the details.
2. Saturday, Oct. 31, and Saturday, Nov. 7: The Fillmore Silver Spring hosts Judah & the Lion on Halloween and Alter Bridge a week later. The Halloween show lands in the middle of the Dale-to-Manchester stage, so anyone heading east on Wayne afterward will reach the closed stretch. Alter Bridge plays the night after that stage is scheduled to end on Nov. 6, and before the next one starts on Nov. 8.
3. Nov. 12 – 15: AFI Silver's Classic Film Weekend brings silent films with live musical accompaniment, restorations, and guest introductions. The Fenton-to-Cedar and Cedar-to-Dale stages are underway that week.
4. Wednesday, Nov. 18: Geoff Tate's Operation: Mindcrime plays the Fillmore.
5. Saturday, Nov. 21, 10 a.m.: The Montgomery County Thanksgiving Parade starts at Ellsworth Drive and Fenton Street and heads south on Georgia Avenue to Silver Spring Avenue. The Wayne and Fenton intersection closure is scheduled to start the next night, just a block away.
6. Every Saturday: The FRESHFARM Downtown Silver Spring market runs year-round from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Veterans Plaza, with its season listed through Dec. 26. It's a morning event, so the overnight closures don't affect it.

Some streets are already coming back

All this work brings back streets downtown has been missing. MTA told Source of the Spring this month that the Spring Street Bridge is "substantially complete and will soon carry traffic." The bridge closed for reconstruction in summer 2024 and was first supposed to reopen in January 2025. An official reopening date hasn't been set, because several items still have to be completed with Montgomery County. In the same statement, MTA said Wayne Avenue had been milled, repaved, and restriped. MTA's construction page says Wayne between Sligo Creek Parkway and Fenton Street is down to one lane in each direction for now.

The wires going up now are part of the last stretch of the project. MTA said on Sept. 3 that construction was 92% complete and that live-wire vehicle testing was running on more than half the alignment. MTA's official testing list still covers only the western section, from the Lyttonsville facility to Bethesda, and the eastern section, from New Carrollton to 14th Avenue. Neither runs through downtown Silver Spring. At an Oct. 5 County Council briefing, as WTOP reported, an MTA official gave Dec. 30, 2027 as the contractual opening date. He called the timing "dynamic" and mentioned April 2028 as a possibility. The project is also holding Community Advisory Team meetings throughout October to preview upcoming milestones and take questions. On weeknights through Dec. 1, check MTA's construction updates page before you drive downtown for dinner, and park with the 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. barricades in mind.

If you're thinking about selling a home along the Purple Line corridor, the construction calendar affects your plans too: when to schedule showings, where buyers will park, and how to describe the commute once the trains are running. Betsy Taylor is glad to walk through how this fall's closure schedule and the Spring Street reopening could shape your listing timeline. Let's Connect.