The Town of Cary has recently proposed a new bond referendum to fund the development of new recreation centers. While on the surface this sounds like a positive step forward, a closer look reveals a significant issue: the proposed bond does not include plans for ANY aquatic facilities. Details here: https://carybonds.org/

Community Input Ignored

During the planning process for the Mills Park Community Center, the Town of Cary conducted an online survey. An overwhelming 70% of the 2,740 respondents expressed a strong desire for indoor aquatic activities. Despite this clear demand, the current bond proposal completely ignores the need for aquatic components.

Cary Behind Other Triangle Communities

Cary is currently the only town among its Triangle peers—Durham, Chapel Hill, Morrisville, and Raleigh—that lacks municipal aquatic facilities. While neighboring communities offer their residents access to public pools and aquatic centers, Cary’s options are limited to private or non-profit facilities. This gap puts undue strain on families and swimmers, who face long commutes or high membership costs—burdens that not all families can afford.

Addressing Western Cary Needs

Western Cary, in particular, suffers from a severe shortage of lap lanes. Many families are forced to make lengthy trips to the Triangle Aquatic Center (TAC) for practices or swim meets. This inconvenience affects daily life and, in some cases, may even deter families from participating in swimming altogether.

Vote NO

Given the strong community support for aquatic facilities, the exclusion of such amenities from this bond referendum is unacceptable. Approving the bond as it stands means missing a crucial opportunity to address a significant need. With the bond amounting to $500 million, it’s uncertain when Twon of Cary will next have the chance to consider adding aquatic facilities.

Send a clear message to the Town of Cary: Vote NO on November 5th to ensure our community’s needs are met.

If you’ve visited the Town of Cary’s website, you might have gotten the impression that the Triangle Aquatic Center (TAC) is a town-funded and operated facility.

However, that’s far from the truth.

The reality is that the TAC was built by a group of dedicated swim parents and community members who recognized the need for more aquatic facilities in the triangle. They didn’t rely on taxpayer dollars or government help. Instead, through sheer determination and fundraising efforts, they secured land, financing, and eventually opened the doors to one of the best aquatic facilities in the region.

Since then, TAC has received minimal support from the Town of Cary. Yet, the town website seems to imply otherwise, potentially misleading residents about the Town of Cary’s true support for aquatic access within the community. Town of Cary owns and operates many athletic facilities, but let’s be clear, an aquatic center is not one of them.

Don’t be fooled by appearances on the town website. The Triangle Aquatic Center is a testament to community spirit, but it’s not a substitute for a true town-funded facility. It’s time for Cary to step up and provide the aquatic center that augments facilities like the TAC and provides aquatic access to a wider range of citizens.

Longtime Cary Town Manager Ben Shivar retired late last year.  Now after a lengthy search, Town of Cary has selected Sean Stegall, city manager of Elgin, Illinois, as his replacement.  Of obvious importance to this site, “does he like pools?”  Well the US Masters Swim site returned no results for “Stegall” for any race.  So maybe not a best case scenario hire.  But all is not lost.  A quick perusal of the Elgin website revealed that lovely Eglin has three city provided aquatic centers.  Three! That’s amazing!  Eglin is only 70% the size of Cary and has a median household income much less than Cary – yet, Eglin still recognized the importance of providing adequate public aquatic resources to their citizens.

Mr. Stegall starts work in Cary on August 4th.  Guess who his first email will be from?  I encourage you to do the same.

One of the many downsides to not having a municipal pool in Cary is the higher cost to swim at pools provided by other organizations.  Unlike municipal pools, many of these organizations don’t even offer daily swim passes.  Instead they require you to be a monthly member – often with an initiation fee.  Of the pools in Cary, only three offer day passes: UNC Wellness at $10, Rex Wellness at $10, and Triangle Aquatic Center at $7.  That makes the average daily swim rate in Cary $9.  Compared with the municipal pools from the surrounding communities, Cary is more than twice as expensive.

Pool Daily Admission Rate

It’s actually cheaper to drive outside of Cary to another city’s pool and swim at their non-resident rate (except for Durham at $9 for non-residents).  So while Cary likes to brag about their lowest tax rate in the area, they fail to mention it comes at the cost of fewer municipal services and resources.  While this may not be a big burden for certain demographics of Cary, it does present a large barrier to entry for many others.  In doing so, access to pools is restricted, fewer people learn to swim and/or enjoy the many health benefits of swimming.

It can be difficult to measure the quality of a pool. Do you do it by size, age, water temperature, etc?  When I’m traveling and looking for a pool where I can workout, the thing I look for is whether a USA Swim team practices there.  For a USA Swim team to practice effectively at a given facility, the pool must meet some minimum criteria regarding size, water temperature, and anti-wake properties.  So I thought it would be interesting to take a look at pools in the Triangle where USA Swim teams practice.  Thankfully, the USA Swimming site makes that pretty easy to do.  Here are the results.

Swim team members will typically travel farther than lap swimmers, learn to swim participants, or other recreational swimmers. For this reason, the map above uses a standard 5-mile service area radius for participants on a USA Swim Team.

As you can see from the map, Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill are all well covered by USA Swim Teams. Town of Cary is partially covered by clubs at three pools in Cary: Cary Family YMCA, Cary Swim Club, and Triangle Aquatic Center. Cary Family YMCA provides the bulk of the partial coverage for central and western Town of Cary. It should be noted, however, that the club at Cary Family YMCA does not offer practices for the 3 highest levels of the program: Silver, Gold, and Platinum. For those, you have to travel to Raleigh.

So why isn’t central and western Cary better served by USA Swim teams?  The simple fact is that there aren’t any decent pools in that area.  The Cary Family YMCA pool is an older pool and it’s bubbled in the winter.  And that’s the best pool in that area other than the UNC Wellness Center which was not designed to accommodate a team (no deck space, starting blocks, or desire to rent lanes).  Clearly these two areas could greatly benefit from a new pool and the new pool would have no competition attracting USA Swimming clubs wanting to rent lanes.  This is where Town of Cary should step up and provide a quality facility for its citizens so they don’t have to drive all over the Triangle to find a decent pool.

Sometimes I hear this when asked why Cary doesn’t have a municipal pool, “Private industry already covers the Town’s aquatics needs.”  This reasoning is usually provided by people who either don’t have aquatics needs or live in a certain area of Cary.  So here’s the coverage map for indoor pools in and around Cary.

Couple notes regarding how a pool made the list and the coverage area. To make the list, the facility must offer year round access to pools. So outdoor pools are not included since they only provide access 3 or 4 months out of the year. The exception is a pool that bubbles during the winter to provide year round access (e.g. YMCA, Cary Swim Club, and Morrisville Aquatic Center).

To determine the coverage area for a pool, municipal commissioned aquatic studies from other areas were consulted as a guide and then applied against the Town of Cary pools. In general, the larger the pool and aquatic complex, the larger the coverage area.

As the map shows, the Northwest and Southwest portions of the Town of Cary are quite underserved. Southwest Town of Cary has no close options and Northwest has only one relatively expensive option (UNC Wellness Center).

While central Cary appears well served, it should be noted that the four pools serving this area are more limited use types of pools. Morrisville Aquatic is an older pool, has fewer than 6 lanes, is bubbled in the winter, and lacks wave-reducing gutters. Sport2Sport has very narrow lanes and also lacks wave-reducing gutters. Rex Wellness – Cary not surprisingly caters more to a water aerobics crowd and not lap swimming / learn to swim. The fourth pool, Cary Family YMCA is arguably the nicest of the four, however, it’s an older pool that’s bubbled in the winter and is only available to those with a monthly membership (no drop in day passes).

Eastern Cary benefits greatly from the Triangle Aquatic Center as well as supplemental coverage from Cary Swim Club and Life Time Fitness. Because Triangle Aquatic Center is such a nice pool, it does suffer from crowding during peak usage times. This is less of a negative regarding the facility and more of a statement regarding the high demand for quality swimming pools in the area.