The first question to answer when thinking about parking is “where can you park?”, then “where should you park?”. To answer both these questions, you’ll need a good understanding of the parking restrictions that may limit your parking options. You’ll also require a sense of your community’s needs and behaviors in order to park (and position) your mobile market in the optimal spot for your customers to both see you and access you.
There are three (3) types of parking/parking arrangements to consider:
Public parking
This is typically an existing business or association that rents or owns the land and where they run their own business (eg: a gas station). The business is considered “an existing stopping place” for the community. For this type of parking, you’ll want to ensure you are not stepping on the toes of your host or other business owners.
Private parking
This type of parking arrangement enables you to set up your market on a regular and recurring basis. This scenario works best if your market shares a common mission with the host site in its service to the community. An example would be a seniors home where 1 hour is likely enough time to fulfill the needs of the customers.
Sponsored parking
We cover sponsored parking in a Module 2. This type of parking involves a sponsorship by a corporate client where your market fulfills the service of providing healthy, fresh produce to the worker of a company during scheduled times (eg: lunch breaks, corporate events, etc…). Under this arrangement, the employer provides a subsidy to the employees so that they can purchase produce at a reduced rate and get access to food they would normally have to acquire after their workday. While this type of parking arrangement may not directly serve your market’s social mission, it may serve your financial goals and ultimately enable you to take on more social initiatives as a result.
For each of these types of parking arrangements, you’ll want to ensure you have secured the appropriate parking permits as described in the previous lesson.
Finding places to park will require some active work on your part. We encourage you to draw upon your community engagement work and observations of your community to examine your options. You can make use of mapping data to determine where to park. For instance:
Your community asset map could be a useful resource for identifying places to park.
You could use the “Food Access Research Atlas” provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to identify vulnerable communities and food deserts.
Don’t under-estimate the knowledge you can acquire simply by parking your truck in what you believe is a great spot and taking time to look around and assess your surroundings. Your observations can quickly tell you if, for instance, you’re parked on the wrong side of the street. A simple switch to the other side of the street could have a huge impact on the traffic you’ll draw in and the customers who are able to see the market. Determine if the site is accessible, if cars are moving too fast to stop for the market, if it is easy to get to without a car, etc…. High traffic areas are not always the easiest areas to access for some customers.
Sometimes, it’s the timing that matters most. Ensure your observations of the desired area are at the time and day that you intend to set up.
Stories from the Road
Not long ago, I found the perfect parking spot for our market. It was a youth center with a big open parking area. The center was located in a populated urban area in one of the highest needs areas of the town.
There was plenty of traffic, but traffic speed was 25 - 30 mph and there was a traffic light just past the youth center, so cars could go slow enough to see us and then pull in.
The youth pastors were supportive and willing to help advertise, but there was only one down side: an 8ft tall black aluminum fence. It was a beautiful fence! In the beginning I didn’t even realize the fence would be a deterrent, but I soon realized that the fence blocked the view of our truck just enough that you could only see us if you were walking, driving very slowly and looking in our direction, or you already knew to pull in.
Even when our customers became aware of our location, the physical barrier also impacted how customers felt about accessing our market. The fence made it seem like not everyone was welcome, even though they were.
We tried all kinds of signage at every intersection nearby, we even tried pulling the truck as close to the fence as possible so it wouldn’t be visible, but none of these attempts remedied the problem. It was our worst performing market and we ended up leaving the location well before the season was over.