Troy

"We believe you can do anything by bike," Maye Yau, employee of Three Wheel Produce, said as she adjusted the cooler in the front basket of her converted bicycle. "It's empowering to believe that food can be accessed anywhere with just the power of a person carrying it to people who need it."

Such is the mantra of Three Wheel Produce in front of Barker Park, the new fruit and vegetable store. It started on an adult-sized dark blue bicycle that was transformed into a 9-foot-long tricycle capable of carrying nearly 100 pounds of produce.

"This idea has been in my head for a very long time, just in different forms," said Alexandra Prince, the founder and owner of Three Wheel Produce. "It goes back awhile to when I was a kid. I had aspirations to be a peddler on the Lower East Side. Then a few years ago I became involved with the food justice," she recalled, referring to communities that advocate for the right to grow, sell and eat healthy food. "I moved to Troy three years ago and recognized it as a food desert and decided I wanted to bring fresh fruits and vegetables to the area. So I took all of the things I liked and sort of put them into one idea."

A food desert, as defined by Prince, is an area that lacks access to quality fresh food at a reasonable price based on the income of the area. For example, if there is a supermarket in an area but it is not accessible except by public transportation or is overpriced based on the median income of the customers, then that would be considered a food desert. Prince, an alumna of McGill University in Montreal, is no stranger to the idea.

"When I lived in Montreal, I worked with farms outside the city to bring fresh fruits and vegetables into the city for students and residents," Prince said. "It's called a farm-to-city food service." The desire for this in Troy gave Prince the drive to make it happen.

"I invested a pretty significant sum of my own money into this to try and get this ball rolling," Prince said, not specifying the amount. "I worked with the city to get my vendor's license so I could sell the produce to the people of Troy. I also had to build my trike. ... I bought the tricycle used. I took it to Troy Bike Rescue, where I received phenomenal help from the people who work there. They taught me how to weld and create things using carpentry.

"I've always had a great interest in human-powered bicycles," Prince said. "If I had used a stand or something along those lines, I would have needed a car to tow it to and from the location. This emits fumes into the air. I'm not trying to simply bring fresh fruit to the area, I'm trying to make a difference as much as I can to make Troy a nicer place for everyone. I wanted to be an example for bicycle-based businesses to show people that it can be done. It's why I chose Barker Park."

Erin Philajah, director of the Troy Business Improvement District, said she hopes more vendors will follow in Prince's trike tracks.

"We were really excited to see her set up in Barker Park," Philajah said. "Barker Park is one of our few downtown parks, and it's exciting to see sort of a fixture begin to frequent there. This stand is exactly what people in downtown Troy want to see in terms of the city growing. What's even more exciting is that the peddler's permit is being used again. We would love to see other vendors with creative ideas like Prince's to pursue them and take advantage of this permit and opportunity."

Barker Park, Prince said, has been a point of political intrigue for the past three years. The city removed benches from the park in an attempt to discourage the homeless from sleeping there. There have been back-and-forth battles of how to revitalize the park.

"I wanted to be part of the revitalization," Prince said. "I wanted to help give back to that space in a positive way."

But Prince's traveling produce stand isn't just about zero-emission vending.

"I purchase as much of my fruit locally as possible, mostly wholesale from the farmers market in Menands," she said. "Though I do buy food elsewhere as well. My focus is about quality as well as affordability. I don't focus on service by scales, simply accessibility. For example, oranges are 75 cents apiece, while apples are 50 cents apiece. My focus is to deliberately keep prices low so it is affordable and accessible for all people. It's why, even though the store is on the trike, for now I am not focused on traveling around with it. I purposely stay in the location in front of Barker Park so people have a dependable and readily available location to buy fresh produce."

She said she'll eventually begin to travel around with the trike, and her vision for the "store" is not completely fulfilled yet.

"I have been focusing on building working relationships with local business and markets," Prince said. "My ultimate dream is to turn this operation into a cooperative vendorship, with multiple trikes around the city. Troy is a large city, and I want to be able to try and feed and better the largest community I can."

tking@timesunion.com • 518-454-5420