The Taylor YMCA in Cary finally posted something about their new aquatic center project.  And by something, I mean very little.  They never responded to email inquiries about the project either.  The few details can be found here:

TAYLOR FAMILY YMCA AQUATIC CENTER

Not much more than what we already knew.  8 lane “cool water” pool (their words) and a 4 lane warm water pool that wasn’t pictured in the plans pulled from the Town of Cary site.  Hopefully this means they’re actually moving forward with the project and will publicize it more in the near future.

It was nice that they included, “currently, the Taylor Y cannot meet the year-round aquatic needs for the growing community.”  I wish Town of Cary also recognized this and would help do something about it.

Is the Cary Family YMCA building a new indoor pool?  Well while the Cary Family YMCA hasn’t posted anything and there haven’t been any news articles about it, the Town of Cary development site has a plan submission for a new indoor pool.  The Cary Family YMCA currently bubbles their big pool during the winter.  However, as everyone knows, that’s not a great solution for indoor swimming.  The proposed new pool is housed within a new permanent structure attached to the existing YMCA.  Design documents show an 8 lane x  25 yard pool wide enough to have lane ropes between the end lanes and the wall.  I emailed the YMCA but haven’t received a response back confirming the project or timeline.  Town of Cary Project Number: 16-SP-087

Not sure how I missed this back in November, but Morrisville has revised its strategy for upgrading the aquatic center.  Given the current upgrade efforts are $1M+ over the available funding, Morrisville is now looking at covering the upgraded pool with a permanent vinyl or glass-paneled dome.  Still 8 lanes, no change there, just a reduction in the cost of the structure to fit within the funding.

Certainly not ideal, but hey – at least Morrisville is trying to make this work.  I still can’t believe they haven’t found a partner to help offset the funding short fall.  A local swim team, the Town of Cary, some group has to be able to help them make up the difference.

More details here:
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/community/cary-news/article115152398.html

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.