The Newton Fields Foundation and City Councilors Tarik Lucas and John Oliver are hosting a forum on Zoom, Sunday Oct 17. 7:30 PM about the state of Newton’s athletic fields and what can be done to improve them. They’ll also have an industry expert on hand to talk about possible paths forward. Sign up for the free event here.
So pleased this is getting attention at the Council level. As I referee youth and high school soccer games, I have a regular chance to compare the quality and state of Newton’s fields with those of surrounding communities. I’m sorry to say that ours generally don’t compare–and, indeed, some are outright dangerous for players and officials. I appreciate that there has been some improvement in some fields this year (including Weeks Field, which I abut), but others have fallen behind or gone backwards. Look at the Highlands Field, for example, recently excellently renovated by the PRC Department, which is now showing bare dirt because of overuse.
A predictable consequence of the later discharge time of the high schools is that the artificial turf fields there are no longer available to the youth leagues. This means that those teams either don’t get to practice or have moved to the grass fields, increasing wear and tear on them. (By the way, parents of the boys and girls soccer league contributed tens of thousands of dollars to help install lights at NSHS, with the promise of access, and now the city has decided that those teams can only play after 8pm–way too late for those children.)
Meanwhile, the city inexplicably charges below market rates for our field use to for-profit soccer training programs. So those folks can make a hefty profit while contributing to the wear and tear of our fields.
These fields are community assets used by thousands of families. Athletic engagement by children is important to their physical, social, and emotional development. There needs to be a plan, milestones, and regular reports to the community on progress.
I have a topic regarding fields, transportation, parking, and congestion that I think plays to questions of longer term planning and development.
Newton sports rely on a variety of fields scattered throughout the city. If you’re a parent with sports kids, you know that driving, often across the city, is part of the deal, as are pretty serious parking nightmares when you get there.
While Newton has a neighborhood school model designed to minimize the need to drive to school, we throw it out the window when it comes to sports: families drive from all over Newton to get to generally small local parks and fields with limited parking.
This situation is a lose-lose-lose-lose-lose one: lots of driving, less biking and walking possible, high demand for parking, less safety in highly congested areas, and inability to host regional sporting events that would draw in even more people. There’s also an important equity issue: families who can’t drive, or don’t have time to, can’t equally participate in sports.
This is a very tricky problem, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t at least start to address it. I’m just a parent, but here are a few ideas that come to mind:
* When allocating fields for regular practice and games, try and optimize for shortest distances. This might be done already, but it’s likely beyond the capabilities of youth sports leagues. It would be great if the city could help with something as fancy as needed as part of its transportation infrastructure.
* The city could help facilitate something like transportation demand management, except for sports. Could we use parking lots that are underused on weekends to help with overflow parking? Could we use some sort of local transit to help? While some of the pieces here may not exist yet, perhaps they overlap with other steps we are taking to reduce congestion in the city. Finding a way to do transportation to away events on a centralized basis would also reduce regional traffic and parking needs.
(All this costs money, but right now parents and league are paying this cost in time and effort, and everyone else is paying in traffic, parking, and congestion.)
* We need to balance carefully transportation, parking, safety, and our parks. Right now, we are fighting amongst ourselves: more access means more parking means more traffic means less safety means less open space. We have to work together and have more options to work with.
* I believe the city needs to have a strategic plan for a new regional athletic center with good transportation connections. There is strongly expressed desire for Newton to be able to host large athletic events, which need parking and transportation access including private automobiles. Trying to accommodate this kind of event in our current parks is very difficult, even with improvements and money. It seems that every current venue is transportation limited, which limits our leagues.
For example, at two locations being planned for open space improvements (Albemarle and the Comm. Ave. carriageway near Lyons Field), the desire for more parking is directly at odds with improved bicycle and pedestrian access as well as availability of green space. Even with maximum parking, the size of sporting events will be still be limited and access will still be inconvenient. And you will make them less safe for everyone.
You’d never design a parking lot like Albemarle Road, with one access in and one out to a single line of parking. Or parking and access at basically all of our fields.Yet we keep trying because that’s where the fields are. Maybe we need to think into the next decade, or two, or three and have a vision of how we could fix this problem if, say, a golf course came onto the market or some other major change in land ownership happened.
I have recently come to feel that we have so many local frustrations that come from trying to turn neighborhood parks and recreational facilities into citywide ones, maybe we accept we need to give in and find a way to create a really good citywide one. My green and sustainable side laments wanting to create a new big parking lot in a big green space somewhere. But we’re doing it anyway, piece by piece, and we aren’t doing it well. Having public transportation options to such a facility would at least provide more options to people, even though I suspect private autos and team buses will remain a dominant means of access.
Yes, this is a pie in the sky dream. We may not see an opportunity in our lifetime. On the other hand, we won’t see it if we don’t look. And in the mean time, let’s make what incremental improvements we can and resist sacrificing pedestrian and bicyclist safety and local open space access when redeveloping our fields.
@Paul Levy–
Your phrase, “consequence,” [in the context of high school start times] caught my attention. Personally I might have used the word “result,” which doesn’t carry the same negative connotation as “consequence.” I’d appreciate clarification of your thoughts as a School Committee candidate. Do you support the later start times?
Paul,
Stick to consequence. As a parent of a NSHS student, the late start time has many consequences. The lack of lighted fields means kids won’t have anyplace to practice/compete soon when it gets dark earlier (as I write this my son’s football practice is still going on and it’s dark out, and we are not even half way through the football season!), missed classes for sports because we have the latest end time of any of the schools NSHS competes against, the fact that if your kid has a free A block they don’t go into school until 10:30, loss of coaches (the south baseball coach resigned in part because of the later start times), etc., etc., etc. The question you should answer is not “Do you support the later start times?”, rather whether you support the shortsighted, later start times that NPS came up with.
Patrick–
To be fair, if we’re going to discuss any “consequences” of later high school start times, we need to consider the well established consequences of early start times. Those consequences are scientifically documented. Early start times result in sleep deprivation, which is particularly tough on teens. Sleep deprivation has been definitively linked to a myriad of physical and mental health issues. Sleep deprivation has also been linked to lower academic scores and even teen suicide.
Changing to later start times will pay big dividends for Newton’s high school students in the years to come. That’s not to say it won’t create some scheduling issues. But the consequences of having not changed to later start times, far exceeded any of the scheduling issues associated with making that change.
@Mike Striar. If you are serious about Newton getting an “athletic complex” then I would be excited to meet with you and get you on board to be a part of NAFF. The vision has been presented many times now for years. I am not interested to have this discussion on V14 unfortunately.
This “image” been shared widely
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I5SIa8iaxB9uv_rkw5VUjVouSzR6scs5/view?usp=sharing
I encourage you to come to the forum and hear what is discussed. I am interested to see what questions and comments people have. For anyone interested, here is three years of material you can review (presentations to many committees, reports youth soccer paid for themselves, etc.) that I have collected and/or produced personally in pursuit of improving athletic fields in Newton.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lmm-ZvP2coyTGII2t_M-_H-R-7UXhW0l/view?usp=sharing
JT
Mike,
I’m not going to debate later start times with you. My point to Paul was to not fall into your trap of either saying he agrees with later start times or doesn’t. As a candidate for school committee, I would ask if he agrees with how NPS has handled start times. I’m just assuming you don’t have any kids in NPS, so I’m speaking from the experience of having a kid who currently is. What has been implemented is not good, at least in my opinion.
Back to the topic of the post…the field in Newton are a disgrace. From the youth to high school fields (grass fields), they are an embarrassment. We moved here about 7 years ago and my expectation was that Newton would have some really good athletic fields..boy was I wrong!
Patrick–
The youngest of my three children graduated from Newton South years ago. So my family is not experiencing the scheduling adjustment that your family and others are struggling with right now. What my kids experienced was the sleep deprivation associated with the old schedule. It sucked!
I sense your frustration though. I’m sympathetic. Clearly there are further adjustments required to make later start times mesh with the rest of the schedule. I have no issue with you pressing for those changes. But I believe it would be a mistake of enormous magnitude for the School Committee to even contemplate reversing course on later high school start times.
That’s why I was alarmed to see Paul Levy, [who I have a lot of respect for], imply that the change to later start times had more “consequences” than benefits. I hope that Paul will find his way back to this thread and offer some specific ideas about tweaking the overall high school schedule to work better with later start times.
@Justin Traxler–
Your invitation is best addressed to the other “Mike” on this thread, Mike Halle. It was his comment I believe you were responding to.
Thanks, Mike #2 Striar, for clarifying the Mike confusion.
Justin, thanks for your pointers. You mention not wanting to discuss this issue on V14, but I would suggest it needs to brought out to a larger audience.
I care about fields, kids, and open spaces, but I care about community and transportation and safety and environment as well, and especially in context of our policy. We need to make connections between these different and interrelated parts of our public policy if we are going to build a better future for the city. I’m convinced that transportation- and safety-related issues are an important part of local sports, in particular because it isn’t obvious and hasn’t been recognized in the past.
I think lots of people feel like they can’t find out about the things in the city they care about, or to which they’d like to contribute. With limited time and few mechanisms to reach out, we naturally end up in our silos. Without this thread, I would have just had an idea that frustrated me. Now I at least have a lead.
We live in a funny time. The pandemic has caused a society-wide retreat into our isolated worlds (which has been happening to some extent for years), yet it has also made video meetings commonplace. We have more social media than ever, with V14 being a local element, but we have dying local news.
V14 has its problems, but in general the problems are us. If good connections and ideas come out of conversations like this one, let’s build on that. Tomorrow is what we make it. Thanks again.
I wonder if v14 should have option to view
Community content(whats happening in newton) vs political content
Ie i want to read about field/road upgrades & events but dont care about negatively targeting council members, cheer leading for developers
@Bugek – That’s what the main Village14 page is for – just a headline and a line or two for each post. Click on and read only the posts that interest you.
Jerry,
Perhaps a suggestion to make a conscious decision to have % split of politics vs community events
For many weeks it can be a endless stream of partisan politics
@Bugek – It tends to wax and wane. This week’s post have been particularly slanted towards politics, last week much less so. I would expect in the run-up to an election things will naturally skew towards politics though.
Your point is a good one and worth always keeping an eye one. Like you, I get weary when everything is unrelenting politics. I’m much more of a fan off the goofy, the off beat, and the totally unexpected posts