The ten weeks since Montgomery County banned RVs and heavy commercial trucks from residential streets have brought about 200 citations and a "dramatic" improvement to neighborhood safety — but not long-term answers for where those vehicles can park.

Displaced owners may soon be able to buy a night of refuge in a pair of unused parcels south of Interstate 270 if Gaithersburg City leaders relent on their concerns over zoning. And state officials are weighing whether to convert an underused park-and-ride lot on Clopper Road in Germantown.

The July 1 law, debated for months as safety versus elitism, combined proposals from County Councilman Michael J. Knapp (D-Dist. 2) of Germantown and County Executive Isiah Leggett. It requires large commercial vehicles (more than 21 feet long, eight feet tall or 10,000 pounds), RVs and trailers to park overnight only on streets with industrial zoning on both sides.

The impact was immediate. Montgomery County Police Capt. Thomas Didone, commander of the 5th District station in Germantown — and a driving force behind the law — estimated that the 350 to 500 vehicles parked on streets in violation before July 1 fell to between 35 and 50 the week after. Even chronically crowded roadways such as Wisteria Drive and Waring Station Road are clear, to the benefit of drivers, pedestrians and officers on patrol, he said.

"It's been a dramatic effect for public safety," Didone said. "I can drive down Wisteria now and see three-quarters the way around the lake."

Police are not tracking how many of the $75 tickets officers have issued. Didone said 125 tickets have been issued in the 5th District, most of them by him. Sixth District Community Services Officer Diane Tillery said she has written 54 tickets in Montgomery Village and Gaithersburg. Officers in the other four districts have not needed to write many tickets, a police spokeswoman said.

But where the displaced vehicles have relocated remains a mystery — the nearest truck stops are in Frederick and Jessup, and officials have come to find out that much of the 14 miles of roadway that meet the parking criteria already bar parking of any kind.

One hundred or more of those semis, dump trucks, trailers and campers could find safe haven at two parcels in the City of Gaithersburg, which does not have any roads that allow oversized and RV parking.

Owners of adjacent 5- and 2-acre lots off Metropolitan Grove Road have in the past two weeks asked city leaders to amend zoning restrictions to allow trucks to park there from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Both lots are in a wooded area bounded by Interstate 270 and the CSX railroad. A few yards to the west, city leaders are banking on someday seeing the "urban core" of the Watkins Mill Town Center, a mix of housing, office buildings, shops, restaurants and movie theaters.

At a hearing Sept. 8 — on Metrogrove 1 LLC's request to allow up to 120 vehicles to park on its 2-acre lot — the City Council and planning commission worried that the parking could become permanent. A week prior, the planning commission recommended that the mayor and council reject a similar request for the abutting 5-acre parcel, where George F. Stevenson, Jr. and his family want to allow other family members to park 15 to 20 dump trucks.

Jody Kline, Metrogrove 1's attorney, suggested that those concerns could be allayed by including a "phasing plan" in an agreement between the owner and the city.

"We need to store these vehicles that are kind of wandering around, looking for a place to tuck themselves in at the end of the night," Kline said. "[T]he property is all cleared, it's all graveled, it's fenced, it's gated, it's ready to go."

City leaders could rule on the proposals by the end of the month.