Vendor Parking Problems

[Rob Burrito]

Hey i know from speaking with a few of the vendors, if you show up at 6am there's a space in the upper parking deck haha! for us latebirds we are instructed to park up there with our 30$ parking pass and often there are no spaces. One time a few months ago, we (the burritos) couldn't get a spot there for an entire 4 week stretch. Winter is also not the best time for parking, as the upper deck is poorly maintained, and can be hazardous to attempt with icy, snowy or freezing conditions. or even worse if it is, as was the last two years, occasionally not cleared of snow at all. Most recently we received this week a notice of the extended ruling of 'no vendor parking areas' along with a jury schedule in which we also cannot park on the designated upper deck we are supposed to park at. The new parking rules slid in with two other updates and an attachment/link. For reference, here is the relevant parking items from the most recent communication from Annette:

2. As many of you may know, the City of York will now be enforcing the parking meter hours on Saturdays from 9 AM until 3 PM. We will still be allowed our load and unload hours as posted on the Beaver Street side of the market, however, all meters will be enforced. I will be working with our marketing department to possibly post signs that inform our customers that the meters will now be enforced.

3. Cherry Lane load/unload: Vendors, please use this area as load/unload zone 7 days a week. There are many projects going on and it is important that this alley be open. The alley was completely blocked on Monday.

4. Meter parking in Clarke Alley. Vendors are not to be parking at these meters. These meters are for the convenience of our customers. They are going to be enforced Mon. through Fri. 8 AM until 5 PM. Sat. parking will remain free for our customers at these meters.

5. Vendors are to be parking in the Central Market parking deck at all times unless you are loading or unloading product. Please be courteous to our customers on Saturdays, take a few extra minutes to drive to the top of the parking deck to park your vehicle. This will allow extra spaces for our customers to park on the first level so that when they are carrying their heavy bags of goodies they bought from you, the vendors, they will not have to walk as far.....this is a selling point to all your customers and takes only a few extra mintues, but will have a lasting impression on our customers. Please remember, you cannot park on the upper deck during jury weeks, we are required to have those spaces available for jurors during those weeks. I will be forwarding a 2011 Jury Schedule for all of you by separate e-mail. All of the upper deck lights have now been replaced, so it will not be dark if you arrive early in the AM.


#2 is a sad state of affairs, as metered time ends an hour after the market. this will further discourage customers and also lose customers for us as they may not be informed of the changes, and will be ticketed. This will lead to less traffic on saturday.

#3 closing off the alley on the east side of market (that faces the Strand) and reserved, angled, head-in spot parking in that alley during market times would eliminate many problems, with the exception of loading of course. Cherry Lane is still open to George street. maybe not the best solution, but an idea. do you think loading would be an issue?

#4 is a shame because those spots are off street in an alley, and not commonly known about by the public, they would make great vendor parking in addition to the lot. plus depending on your hours, over the course of a month they were cheaper than the pass anyways. I feel that locals "in the know" use those spots as they are sometimes full even on non market days, and are most likely parking there regardless if they patronize the market or not. good for market company income on closed days right?

#5 is where i feel the biggest problem is, and after one of my guys speaking with Annette about it, she explained the lots construction was a deal with the city and the CMHC reserves juror parking for free. While sometimes my instinct tells me this is not the whole truth, the problem relevant to us is that our parking passes and what limited spots we have for parking are unavailable for weeks at a time.

the attachment Market Master sent was 22 pages (hey shorter than the new lease right?) The important part for us is the jury cases for the term of the next year are listed in these times:

Monday, January 10, through Friday, January 21

Monday, February 7, through Friday, February 11

Monday, March 7, through Friday, March 18

Monday, April 4, through Friday, April 15

Monday, May 2, through Friday, May 13

Monday, June 6, through Friday, June 17

Monday, July 11, through Friday, July 15

Monday, August 8, through Friday, August 19

Tuesday, September 6, through Friday, September 16

Monday, October 3, through Friday, October 14

Monday, October 31, through Thursday, November 10

Monday, December 5, through Friday, December 16

Monday, January 9, 2012, through January 20, 2012

^ that's alot.
So, to start things off, the city and the board are not on our side here; does anyone have a suggestion on where to park? i suggested to a board member last month and a year ago to Annette the idea and solution of 'reserved parking' for vendors, only on market days and times. I have not heard a response and the situation can be harming to some vendors. already my stand has been late opening because of driving around in vein with a parking pass, then finally parking four blocks away, only to get a city parking ticket later :p the only other solution i can think of is showing up for the early worm, but that just passes the problem to someone else. let's hear some thoughts?

[Sarah Lanphier]

2. This is not a market issue per say but a City wide issue. We are having a Beaver St merchant meeting Monday, January 10th at 5pm at the Camera Center. We will be discussing this topic and how we, as a collective group of business owners, can rally together to effectively tell the government how detrimental this will be to their wallets. The extra money from tickets and meters collected on Saturday will not and cannot ever match the tax revenue small businesses create. No business = no tax revenue = budget deficit.

3. I don't see a problem with this one.

4. I agree with Rob to some extent but I would prefer to leave these open for customers during market hours.

5. I personally believe every vendor should be guaranteed one spot in the garage (not for free). We have the challenge of being located in the city with limited parking. This is a challenge we can work together to overcome by being creative and maybe having employees who don't need to carry large quantities of stuff park a block away where is isn't as crowded, not ideal I know but we all signed up to open a business in the city. Parking will always be limited, so we need to make alternative arrangements. That being said, if you purchased a parking pass there is NO REASON to be denied a spot. It is poor business management and ethics to oversell the garage. If there are 80 spots you cannot sell 90 passes!

I think they should limit the parking to parking passes only during jury days.

[Rob Burrito]

Sarah, real quick:

#2 someone at the merchant meeting (thanks for posting the time if anyone wants to attend) suggest parking enforcement operates like it's on crack and obviously such odd hours of saturday only is a plan targeted as a quick hit of cash that will, as you mentioned, be detrimental in the long run. Suggest they help support creating a long term economy of the downtown businesses- rather than focus on penalizing the customers there to patronize them so strictly. the irony of 'parking' enforcement 'driving' away customers is the angle i'd go with that one.

"3. I don't see a problem with this one."
#3 Annette mentioned the alley was completely blocked Monday. market isn't open monday. It wasn't us, and is a non issue as far as i have ever seen. there has been construction crews out there sometimes causing blocked traffic, maybe she should tell them to get out of our way to keep the loading areas free for us. knowing annette she will tell the construction crews they can buy a parking pass in the office for 30$ :p

[Sarah Lanphier]

#3. I miss read the third statement. I agree with you. I thinks she was just making a general statement.

[Sharon Whiteley]

Hey, just a few observations:
#2 - I agree that this a city issue, however I can tell you that from the time the city stopped enforcing the meters on Saturdays (approx. 4-5 yrs ago) to present day, most of the spots on Philly on a Saturday are occupied by vendors for the entire day. I can name names but I won't.
#3 - You probably aren't aware that we share the right of way to Cherry Lane with the Strand and other property owners. And I believe the alley is actually owned by the city. I know first hand that tickets issued in Cherry Lane come from the city.
#5 - I agree that the market should not over sell spaces at Phil/Beav, but I don't know that is the case. My guess is the Market bases the usage on market hours of 6 to 2 and figures that most vendors arrive for that opening time when there are plenty of spaces. I know it's frustrating to arrive late and not be able to find a space, but with the alternative being a reserved space in the city garage at over $100 a month I'll stick with the market one.

[Rob Burrito]

#2 Sharon feel free to name people, i'll raise my own hand. i know on some saturdays if there's no parking available on the deck and there's a spot right out front one of my guys would take the meter. not particularly picking a spot just a spot anywhere. our biggest problem is circling an outward spiral of one way streets looking for a spot for 15+ minutes everytime after we unload. the only spot i have found that is usually open is four blocks away, and no i'm not telling anyone because it's only one spot and we probably shouldn't be there anyway. i know it's not preferrable to everybody, but the point is that's the ONLY SPOT ANYWHERE sometimes. looking for a solution is the goal here. Robert brought up a good point of the new city parking meter ruling now that if the vendors pay for the meters it leaves the parking garage on philly open for customers to park for free and not get fines, retaining and possibly encouraging business with an almost guaranteed and free customer spot there. from my standpoint $100 and a spot is better than $30 for no spots.

#3 Sharon what were you doing parking in cherry lane!?! :p

#5 the parking is oversold, there are 54 vendors (well not counting the religious people that walk around handing out cartoons- do they have a stand?), and crap well i forgot to count the parking spaces. i'll do that tuesday. Annette's aware of this, but has never counted- possibly doesn't want to face the facts. jurors often park in 'non' spaces up there too on jury days, as long as parking enforcement would look the otherway up there maybe vendors could overpark as well. i'll again bring up the point that without having reserved spaces, those spots are also often taken by public parking as well.

This is another issue i brought up to Annette yesterday, and she doesn't know what to do about it. she's just aware it's a problem- put into her problem stack. those of us with problems are on our own, so i suggested if vendors independently search out parking agreements with neighboring businesses it could solve a few of our problems, white rose, hmm that news shack/crack pipe store, lafayette? anyone have any friends at those places? drew you work at the Lafayette club right? can you score some info on passes for there? relative to earlybirds the issue would still need addressed about overselling the spaces. if the market board is going to regulate where vendors cant park, the least they could do is provide a place for us to park. again i know if you get there at the butt crack of dawn there will be a spot, so this is not an issue for some vendors- but feel free to throw in a suggestion for us that do.

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