I'm trying to control parking in a small church parking lot. People come in and park in random places so there ends up being a lot of wasted space. I want to try to paint lines but I'm not sure of the best way to do that on gravel. I could just use regular striping paint but I'm not sure that it would last very long. Any suggestions? Has anyone done this sort of thing before? The lot has just been graded and well compacted so there is no loose stone, just hard packed smooth gravel for the most part.
Good luck with that . . . lines will help, but somebody will still park wonky, and then everybody else will follow. About the only way to make people park right is to stand out there and park them as they come in.
Here's one idea ... 4 Benefits of Gravel Parking Lot Markers Over Traditional Paint How do you best utilize a gravel lot? Without stripes, parking will be inefficient and unorganized. Paint on gravel just does not work, unless you enjoy painting frequently. Of all the benefits of using permeable pavers to build a gravel parking lot, one of the most overlooked is that using... www.truegridpaver.com Another idea is to bury painted bricks or pavers - or even colored glass bottles (bottom facing up) - at regular distances to indicate lines. Then make sure you put up a sign saying those who don't keep inside the lines, are on the broad path that leads to destruction .....
I deal with the same thing at our church. I took 2 1x4s and screwed them together about 3 inches apart and the appropriate length. I lay that on the gravel and use upside down stripping paint. On crushed gravel the lines are very visible for about 2-3 months and slowly fade, so I redo them about twice a year. Not ideal but it works.
Put parking curbs in and/or find some junk telephone poles
Chalk like is used on a ball field. Maybe scratch out a little trench and lay it in real thick so it lasts longer.
Beat me to it. You should be able to get old power poles from your local power co. Arrange them the way you want them to park and paint lines on the poles marking the spaces. Not a total solution but cheap and easy start. There's a more expensive option that I saw on a parking lot we bid a couple of months ago. About 100 spaces in a rectangle with a bio-swale in the middle where the entire lot drained to. The surface was designed as all gravel with concrete parking bumpers and IIRC PT YP 4x6's buried in order to mark the spaces off.
The last power job I was on we had a similar problem. Because of snow plowing etc. we wound up using steel T posts and yellow rope to create the main lines to generally keep people straight. Didn’t solve the issue of people parking on a skew but it did help to get better utilization of the space we had.
Thanks for all the ideas! Can't do anything buried in because of plowing (unless I want to take them out and put them in every year). The permeable paver setup looks pretty cool.
How about the good old marking paint, like locators use? I even have a can of white that comes in handy at times.
Look like a old grain elevator
Cut conveyor belt into strips, paint 'em white and spike down on both ends? Only thing is it might be a tripping hazard for the old folks.
Yellow rope and a short bent piece of light rebar to hold it down?
At work we gave up on the spray painting floors and went to adhesive nylon tape. While the adhesive wouldn’t work well with gravel, you could use nylon cap nails but would probably be a tire hazard. What about red heads, we use them building gravel roads for grade. They are very durable. Not sure what the correct name is for them. They look like red brush tips you nail in the gravel and stick up.
I think I will just make an announcement that since we've been having trouble with inefficient parking the youth group will be handling all the parking from now on