Tracks are too precious - that shouldn't be the case

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3 months ago 02/04/2026 11:21pm EST

re: rjhphysicist

It seems to me those pushing for "free" public use of a facility such as a track don't understand the economics of sports in the US anymore. I just paid $1000 for my grandson to play for his local travel basketball team, in addition to buying a uniform, shoes, etc. for an additional $500. Soccer travel squads cost even more.

As I mentioned the track and football field is costing the town and school over $1 million dollars and through normal use, lasts about 10 years.

You want a solution. Join a track club or create one, pay a user fee and have weekly workouts once school programs are done for the day. That is how it was for many years when I ran and I assume is still a popular option.

I have seen "public" and "park" tracks that are more dangerous than running on the roads, as either much of the facility is torn up or neglected over the years. If a town, city or school system is going to invest so much money for a sports facility, as a member of that town community, I would very much want them to make sure the place is well protected and those who use the facility are supervised to keep it in good shape. Would you want the indoor tracks in NYC to be open and free for use? I still remember when the Armory housed homeless there and you needed to watch where you walked.

Closed tracks are nothing new, as Vince Matthews, Olympian wrote about, having to climb over fences to get a workout in during his career, while living in NYC. If a runner is willing to plop down $100 to run in a race at some fast indoor facility, I would think being part of a track club with proper supervision and paying a rental stipend would be a good solution. Otherwise, you can always run "telephone poles", as I and other runners did, in the "good ol' days". Four poles were about 200 meters. Running a straight-away 400 meters was strange but effective for getting a workout done. Sometimes you could even include some hill running in the middle of that 400 meter distance.

Sure, it would be great if all these tracks were open to the public, but just as it used to cost just $5.00 an entry fee for running in an indoor meet, times have changed. Sports facilities cost lots of money to build and maintain.

3 months ago 02/05/2026 5:19am EST

re: Trackist tracker

Trackist tracker wrote:
Every park bigger than a neighborhood park should have a track - including most state parks and city parks. Instead, in the US, 99% of tracks are at schools, 90% of which are locked up and not open to the public, less they do something other than run repeats on the track or injure themselves and be unable to leave.

I say, move up north, baby! You can always find an open track except in big cities.

3 months ago 02/05/2026 6:23am EST

re: CaliforniaCarlson

CaliforniaCarlson wrote:
It seems to me those pushing for "free" public use of a facility such as a track don't understand the economics of sports in the US anymore. I just paid $1000 for my grandson to play for his local travel basketball team, in addition to buying a uniform, shoes, etc. for an additional $500. Soccer travel squads cost even more.
As I mentioned the track and football field is costing the town and school over $1 million dollars and through normal use, lasts about 10 years.
You want a solution. Join a track club or create one, pay a user fee and have weekly workouts once school programs are done for the day. That is how it was for many years when I ran and I assume is still a popular option.
I have seen "public" and "park" tracks that are more dangerous than running on the roads, as either much of the facility is torn up or neglected over the years. If a town, city or school system is going to invest so much money for a sports facility, as a member of that town community, I would very much want them to make sure the place is well protected and those who use the facility are supervised to keep it in good shape. Would you want the indoor tracks in NYC to be open and free for use? I still remember when the Armory housed homeless there and you needed to watch where you walked.
Closed tracks are nothing new, as Vince Matthews, Olympian wrote about, having to climb over fences to get a workout in during his career, while living in NYC. If a runner is willing to plop down $100 to run in a race at some fast indoor facility, I would think being part of a track club with proper supervision and paying a rental stipend would be a good solution. Otherwise, you can always run "telephone poles", as I and other runners did, in the "good ol' days". Four poles were about 200 meters. Running a straight-away 400 meters was strange but effective for getting a workout done. Sometimes you could even include some hill running in the middle of that 400 meter distance.
Sure, it would be great if all these tracks were open to the public, but just as it used to cost just $5.00 an entry fee for running in an indoor meet, times have changed. Sports facilities cost lots of money to build and maintain.

Allow the Kenyans to move to the USA and you will get your tracks!

3 months ago 02/05/2026 6:23am EST

re: trackist tracker

trackist tracker wrote:
CaliforniaCarlson wrote:
And who will take care of the tracks, keeping dog poop, duck poop, bikes, roller bladers, homeless and garbage off the facility. These are not cheap and leaving them open is asking for trouble, with the tracks done in less than 5 years.
Now, if you want an asphalt track with some painted lines on them, go for it.
Parks departments will clean daily. Paid for by taxes, preferably from the mega rich. There is nothing to stop the roller bladers, bikers, and ball children from using the track unfortunately - they already do their annoyances at school and college tracks so no difference in that. Homeless who cause problems will be moved by the cops or park rangers as pertinent. State park rangers already do this.

If we stop funneling tax payer money to Somalia scumbags, we would have plenty of money to build and maintain tracks. Unfortunately our country is completely f*d with countless money being wasted.

3 months ago 02/05/2026 6:51am EST

re: CaliforniaCarlson

CaliforniaCarlson wrote:
It seems to me those pushing for "free" public use of a facility such as a track don't understand the economics of sports in the US anymore. I just paid $1000 for my grandson to play for his local travel basketball team, in addition to buying a uniform, shoes, etc. for an additional $500. Soccer travel squads cost even more.
As I mentioned the track and football field is costing the town and school over $1 million dollars and through normal use, lasts about 10 years.
You want a solution. Join a track club or create one, pay a user fee and have weekly workouts once school programs are done for the day. That is how it was for many years when I ran and I assume is still a popular option.
I have seen "public" and "park" tracks that are more dangerous than running on the roads, as either much of the facility is torn up or neglected over the years. If a town, city or school system is going to invest so much money for a sports facility, as a member of that town community, I would very much want them to make sure the place is well protected and those who use the facility are supervised to keep it in good shape. Would you want the indoor tracks in NYC to be open and free for use? I still remember when the Armory housed homeless there and you needed to watch where you walked.
Closed tracks are nothing new, as Vince Matthews, Olympian wrote about, having to climb over fences to get a workout in during his career, while living in NYC. If a runner is willing to plop down $100 to run in a race at some fast indoor facility, I would think being part of a track club with proper supervision and paying a rental stipend would be a good solution. Otherwise, you can always run "telephone poles", as I and other runners did, in the "good ol' days". Four poles were about 200 meters. Running a straight-away 400 meters was strange but effective for getting a workout done. Sometimes you could even include some hill running in the middle of that 400 meter distance.
Sure, it would be great if all these tracks were open to the public, but just as it used to cost just $5.00 an entry fee for running in an indoor meet, times have changed. Sports facilities cost lots of money to build and maintain.

Who are you again? Probably, nobody - partly because you trained using telephone poles, not marks on a track.

3 months ago 02/05/2026 6:55am EST

re: trackist tracker

I went to a high school in the south. It was a large school in a city of ~100k people. Not a super wealthy area, pretty middle class. The track and field and stadium were basically public assets to the community. It was always open unless there was a game. It's a beautiful facility. You could look out the window during class and see random people running and playing on the field, not students. Old people walked a lot there. Our coach would sometimes just ask these people to use lane 8 while we had practice. Lots of schools around me were like this too.

Then I moved to a place rural northeast and it was all very different. This was a pretty impoverished small town. I tried to speak to the AD of the local high school and he clearly didn't even wanna talk about it. The track was locked almost 100% of the time the school wasn't using it. What's funny is that none of the coaches cared, and some were vocally against the AD. I found that if I tossed stray lacrosse or soccer balls back to the teams in between reps, the teams didn't mind me crashing their practices.

I discovered that if I went to the wealthier town 10 minutes down the road, they left their track open and everyone was much friendlier.

I was friendly with the local college coach. Similar situation. He wanted the track open 24/7, for the student body and community to use. But the school wouldn't let him.
Anyway, it sucks, I feel for all y'all. Find some good hills and some good stretches of quiet road and make it work.

3 months ago 02/05/2026 7:04am EST

re: trackist tracker

trackist tracker wrote:
CaliforniaCarlson wrote:
It seems to me those pushing for "free" public use of a facility such as a track don't understand the economics of sports in the US anymore. I just paid $1000 for my grandson to play for his local travel basketball team, in addition to buying a uniform, shoes, etc. for an additional $500. Soccer travel squads cost even more.
As I mentioned the track and football field is costing the town and school over $1 million dollars and through normal use, lasts about 10 years.
You want a solution. Join a track club or create one, pay a user fee and have weekly workouts once school programs are done for the day. That is how it was for many years when I ran and I assume is still a popular option.
I have seen "public" and "park" tracks that are more dangerous than running on the roads, as either much of the facility is torn up or neglected over the years. If a town, city or school system is going to invest so much money for a sports facility, as a member of that town community, I would very much want them to make sure the place is well protected and those who use the facility are supervised to keep it in good shape. Would you want the indoor tracks in NYC to be open and free for use? I still remember when the Armory housed homeless there and you needed to watch where you walked.
Closed tracks are nothing new, as Vince Matthews, Olympian wrote about, having to climb over fences to get a workout in during his career, while living in NYC. If a runner is willing to plop down $100 to run in a race at some fast indoor facility, I would think being part of a track club with proper supervision and paying a rental stipend would be a good solution. Otherwise, you can always run "telephone poles", as I and other runners did, in the "good ol' days". Four poles were about 200 meters. Running a straight-away 400 meters was strange but effective for getting a workout done. Sometimes you could even include some hill running in the middle of that 400 meter distance.
Sure, it would be great if all these tracks were open to the public, but just as it used to cost just $5.00 an entry fee for running in an indoor meet, times have changed. Sports facilities cost lots of money to build and maintain.
Who are you again? Probably, nobody - partly because you trained using telephone poles, not marks on a track.

No way I can focus on running reps on the streets without worrying about get demolished by a car

3 months ago 02/05/2026 8:16am EST

re: Trackist tracker

Trackist tracker wrote:
Every park bigger than a neighborhood park should have a track - including most state parks and city parks. Instead, in the US, 99% of tracks are at schools, 90% of which are locked up and not open to the public, less they do something other than run repeats on the track or injure themselves and be unable to leave.

In the UK, my local council charges £4.50 to use the track just for a maximum of 1 hour.

3 months ago 02/05/2026 8:20am EST

re: trackist tracker

trackist tracker wrote:
CaliforniaCarlson wrote:
And who will take care of the tracks, keeping dog poop, duck poop, bikes, roller bladers, homeless and garbage off the facility. These are not cheap and leaving them open is asking for trouble, with the tracks done in less than 5 years.
Now, if you want an asphalt track with some painted lines on them, go for it.
Parks departments will clean daily. Paid for by taxes, preferably from the mega rich. There is nothing to stop the roller bladers, bikers, and ball children from using the track unfortunately - they already do their annoyances at school and college tracks so no difference in that. Homeless who cause problems will be moved by the cops or park rangers as pertinent. State park rangers already do this.

I’m not rich and I would be happy to pay taxes for something like that

3 months ago 02/05/2026 9:06am EST

re: trackist tracker

trackist tracker wrote:
CaliforniaCarlson wrote:
It seems to me those pushing for "free" public use of a facility such as a track don't understand the economics of sports in the US anymore. I just paid $1000 for my grandson to play for his local travel basketball team, in addition to buying a uniform, shoes, etc. for an additional $500. Soccer travel squads cost even more.
As I mentioned the track and football field is costing the town and school over $1 million dollars and through normal use, lasts about 10 years.
You want a solution. Join a track club or create one, pay a user fee and have weekly workouts once school programs are done for the day. That is how it was for many years when I ran and I assume is still a popular option.
I have seen "public" and "park" tracks that are more dangerous than running on the roads, as either much of the facility is torn up or neglected over the years. If a town, city or school system is going to invest so much money for a sports facility, as a member of that town community, I would very much want them to make sure the place is well protected and those who use the facility are supervised to keep it in good shape. Would you want the indoor tracks in NYC to be open and free for use? I still remember when the Armory housed homeless there and you needed to watch where you walked.
Closed tracks are nothing new, as Vince Matthews, Olympian wrote about, having to climb over fences to get a workout in during his career, while living in NYC. If a runner is willing to plop down $100 to run in a race at some fast indoor facility, I would think being part of a track club with proper supervision and paying a rental stipend would be a good solution. Otherwise, you can always run "telephone poles", as I and other runners did, in the "good ol' days". Four poles were about 200 meters. Running a straight-away 400 meters was strange but effective for getting a workout done. Sometimes you could even include some hill running in the middle of that 400 meter distance.
Sure, it would be great if all these tracks were open to the public, but just as it used to cost just $5.00 an entry fee for running in an indoor meet, times have changed. Sports facilities cost lots of money to build and maintain.
Who are you again? Probably, nobody - partly because you trained using telephone poles, not marks on a track.

Nice, typical LRC response. Ran 45.5 for 400meters (All-Amerca in 600 yds) and even ran a 2:47 marathon after my career as a runner was over. So take that small mind.

3 months ago 02/05/2026 9:24am EST

re: CaliforniaCarlson

People still roller blade? Is that seriously still a thing?

3 months ago 02/05/2026 9:32am EST

re: trackist tracker

trackist tracker wrote:
CaliforniaCarlson wrote:
And who will take care of the tracks, keeping dog poop, duck poop, bikes, roller bladers, homeless and garbage off the facility. These are not cheap and leaving them open is asking for trouble, with the tracks done in less than 5 years.
Now, if you want an asphalt track with some painted lines on them, go for it.
Parks departments will clean daily. Paid for by taxes, preferably from the mega rich. There is nothing to stop the roller bladers, bikers, and ball children from using the track unfortunately - they already do their annoyances at school and college tracks so no difference in that. Homeless who cause problems will be moved by the cops or park rangers as pertinent. State park rangers already do this.

Build cinder tracks. Bring back steam trains all over the US to provide a source for the cinders. Start rebuilding Bigboy locomotives. Make track and the economy great again.

3 months ago 02/05/2026 10:19am EST

re: Make Track Great Again

I know you are kidding, but cinder tracks were messy, full of ruts, not useable after a decent rain until the surfaced dried up a bit. I remember one high school track where ashes from coal heating furnaces were spread over the track, with some huge chunks of unburned coal part of the surface. Rutgers installed a brick track back in 1965, brick that was left over when London was bombed during World War 2. That product was pretty good as water actually made it harder and faster, while dry conditions caused it to be more like beach sand. Also, keep in mind that cinder tracks needed more labor, raking, stripping and annual replacement of cinders if you wanted to keep the track in good shape.

Out west red clay tracks were very popular and fast, as the sun would bake the surface nice and hard. Jim Ryun ran some very fast times out there at the Bakersfield facility.

As to the comment about running in the streets, I would choose local quiet neighborhoods where traffic was pretty light. In Central Park, you could do repeats up on the reservoir (pretty much a cinder surface) or on the 6 mile loop around the park. The NYRRC used to have weekly workouts up there. Central Park also had a small track there that was pretty useless.

There are plenty of options available, you just have to think creatively. Yes, it would be nice to run on a Mondo or Rekortan (polyurethane) track, but, as I said, those are huge investments and local communities want these locations to be well taken care of, thus as prices for facilities keep going up, more fences with locks are found. Indoor tracks are even more expensive, as 24 years ago Boston U's indoor track cost $22 million. Penn's new indoor track was about double that cost. Penn's outdoor track resurfacing was way over $1 million (I have not heard of the actual cost, but do know how much Rekortan full pure surfaces cost).

3 months ago 02/05/2026 12:56pm EST

re: Trackist tracker

Trackist tracker wrote:
Every park bigger than a neighborhood park should have a track - including most state parks and city parks. Instead, in the US, 99% of tracks are at schools, 90% of which are locked up and not open to the public, less they do something other than run repeats on the track or injure themselves and be unable to leave.

I would like to see that, but as bad as locked Tracks after always being open to the public is, The Situation is much worse in Japan, If you live in Japan and want to use a running Track Good Luck it is Easier to win the Lotto than it is to find a running track in japan open to the public.

3 months ago 02/05/2026 1:16pm EST

re: rjhphysicist

rjhphysicist wrote:
You are wrong. The high schools in every city that I have lived in do not permit public use.

Come to Canada. We're not weird like that.

3 months ago 02/05/2026 1:40pm EST

re: Runner, MD

I travel around the country often and frequently look for open tracks, yet >90% they are locked with no public access. Ironically, where I now live in the Northeast, public high school tracks, which use taxpayer money for their facilities, are exclusively locked up. However, there are wealthy private schools, likely using donor funds, and their tracks are completely open to the public.

3 months ago 02/05/2026 1:53pm EST

re: Trackist tracker

Trackist tracker wrote:
Every park bigger than a neighborhood park should have a track - including most state parks and city parks. Instead, in the US, 99% of tracks are at schools, 90% of which are locked up and not open to the public, less they do something other than run repeats on the track or injure themselves and be unable to leave.

I would love for there to be more publicly accessible tracks. One of my biggest struggles during the 2020 lockdown was finding a track because every one in my area was fenced off and too high to hop. Even after it's tough because the public university (which I went to) requires a student ID or an alumni gym membership to get on the track. Community colleges and high schools when there's no games/practice is the way I've had to do it and sometimes you just have to call an audible and accept there's no track today.

The area I moved to last year actually does have a nice track that's maintained and regularly available as part of a city park but that also means it's a hub for every local run club on weekday nights. I always thought it would be great if a private gym could offer a full 400m tartan track as part of their amenities but I guess the cost of the land plus construction wouldn't be worth it for 99% of gym goers who see no difference on the treadmill. Still, as someone who's never had a gym membership in my life, that would be a big selling point for me.

3 months ago 02/05/2026 11:25pm EST

re: crisscrosscountry

I've found that in my state school track access varies from county to county. However, park trails are easier on the knees than roads, and give an additional benefit of not being perfectly flat.

Of course, if you are training for sprints that's not a good place to do it.

3 months ago 02/06/2026 12:21am EST

re: blerpmerp

blerpmerp wrote:
Tell me why this isn't true? Also, in my situation I just called the school AD and asked what times would be good for me to use the track. I do most my workouts before school even starts and I've never had an issue or someone asking me what I'm doing.

I stopped doing track workouts in the late 90's and by then a lot of high school tracks were starting to have fences and locks and signs. So I imagine they are even way more restrictive now. Early 90s I shoveled off lane one on a track to do a workout. Pretty silly in retrospect.

3 months ago 02/06/2026 5:47am EST

re: blerpmerp

blerpmerp wrote:
Most school tracks are open to the public as long as there's not a track meet or other game going on. If you live in that district and you pay taxes to that school, technically you are paying for that track, so go use it!

Unfortunately this isn’t true in most places. Where I live the HS track facility was renovated using community money, so they leave it open. But most around here are locked up.

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