Best Rules for Public Courts

[jht32]

Originally Posted by spot

sorry. in reading quickly I didn't notice that there was both an jmnk and a jht32 that were both making the same mistake in this thread. I sincerely apologize.

That's okay. I can see that reading comprehension is not your strong suit.

[lcalamar]

Can't believe this thread to a turn towards math vs logic vs language.. sound like it is about time to wrap it up!

Great dialogue - and no clear answer other than to hear from so many valid and diverse opinions.

Sounds like first come first served is almost universally accepted.

Time limits and the amount of time limits (if there were time limits) could be debated continuously with no clear outcome.

I think everyone for the most part agrees players need to thoughtful and courteous toward players who are waiting for courts, even though those definitions and interpretations vary widely!

Different geo-demographic areas seem to have as much a bearing on what seems acceptable as anything else. Definitely strong opinions based on what works and what doesn't work where people currently play - and the availability of courts.

All comes down to the realization that there is no set of rules that will work everwhere...

... O R There?

THANKS All!

[tenniscasey]

^^^^ Well put, lcalamar!

[schap02]

Originally Posted by kylebarendrick

Nothing seems to work. People play as long as they want, they lie about how long they have been there, and they get mad at you if you try to enforce time limits.

so true, hate the teaching pros who use public cts all day to make money...one guy padlocks his hopper to the net so early in the day you almost cant beat him out. luckily we have so many cts around its easy to find open ones but then again if I cared that much - id call the county but I don't

[jmnk]

setting the question of logic and math aside, there are no 'best' rules. As long as the rules, whatever they are, are posted (and obeyed) everyone should get along. If you do not like particular rules perhaps you can find courts with different ones.
in my area the posted rules usually say that the courts change on an hour (making it one hour limit), or even courts at even hour, odd courts at odd hour (for two hour limit). realistically I'm not sure if it matters for any serious play - if the courts are fairly full you can't really play on those courts anyway due to others behavior, balls flying in and out, people walking along the fence during the point, poor lighting, etc. it used to bother me so i've joined the club and have pretty decent conditions although no longer free. oh well. And for casual hitting - one hour is fine as well.

[floridatennisdude]

Originally Posted by schap02

so true, hate the teaching pros who use public cts all day to make money...one guy padlocks his hopper to the net so early in the day you almost cant beat him out. luckily we have so many cts around its easy to find open ones but then again if I cared that much - id call the county but I don't

Oh, man do I despise the teaching pros that do this. I get it that they have to eat and this is their means, but they need to be paying for court time if they are going to be charging for lessons. I would have no problem with a pro camping on a city park court all day if I knew he/she was paying for the right to do so.

[Cindysphinx]

I think we should go easy on the pros, so long as they are reasonable about it. I take lessons on public courts, but we are careful to pick times when demand is low.

It is a tough economy. I support anyone who is scrappy enough to make ends meet through teaching.

Not to mention how i could afford fewer lessons if I also had to pay for court time. . . .

[floridatennisdude]

^^^I do agree to a point. There is a teaching pro in my area that clearly abuses the system. The pro takes the posted rules to mean that each person taking a lesson gets the allotted 1 hour. He will give 3 or 4 straight lessons during peak times. I have never said anything to him, but when I am playing and he shows up to set up his equipment I am in no rush to relinquish my court to him. If he wants priority time, I think he should pay for it or work at a club.

[TomT]

Yesterday, a couple of guys who I'd never seen before showed up at the courts. It was busy. While I was getting a drink between games they asked me how long a wait there would be. I told them that the rule was one hour if there's people waiting to play, that it was an honor system, and that my opponent and I started at 6:35 and would be off at 7:35, no matter what the status of our match, if they were still waiting.

As it turned out, the people on the court next to us finished well before 7:35. My match actually went a bit longer than an hour (we played a 10-game pro set), but no problem because nobody needed our court.

Anyway, regarding the thread title theme, I think the best rule is of course first come first served, and then a one hour time limit if the courts get busy. If everybody just agrees to abide by those simple rules (and, in my experience almost everybody does), then there's no problem.

[corbind]

Originally Posted by floridatennisdude

There is a teaching pro in my area that clearly abuses the system. The pro takes the posted rules to mean that each person taking a lesson gets the allotted 1 hour. He will give 3 or 4 straight lessons during peak times.

Man that's pretty funny.

[Cindysphinx]

Originally Posted by TomT

Yesterday, a couple of guys who I'd never seen before showed up at the courts. It was busy. While I was getting a drink between games they asked me how long a wait there would be. I told them that the rule was one hour if there's people waiting to play, that it was an honor system, and that my opponent and I started at 6:35 and would be off at 7:35, no matter what the status of our match, if they were still waiting.

As it turned out, the people on the court next to us finished well before 7:35. My match actually went a bit longer than an hour (we played a 10-game pro set), but no problem because nobody needed our court.

Anyway, regarding the thread title theme, I think the best rule is of course first come first served, and then a one hour time limit if the courts get busy. If everybody just agrees to abide by those simple rules (and, in my experience almost everybody does), then there's no problem.

Hold up.

"one hour limit when people are waiting" means you have to stop if you have been playing an hour before anyone is waiting?

Say you start at 9. I show up at 10:01. You have to get off? I thought it meant you can make the people wait for one hour or until you are finished, whichever comes first.

[kylebarendrick]

Cindy, if I've played two sets and nobody is waiting, I'll usually start a third. If someone subsequently shows up, I'll finish my set and then let them have the court. Seems like a fair solution to me.

[Cindysphinx]

Originally Posted by kylebarendrick

Cindy, if I've played two sets and nobody is waiting, I'll usually start a third. If someone subsequently shows up, I'll finish my set and then let them have the court. Seems like a fair solution to me.

Sure. I'm wondering what the actual rule is when it is phrased that way.

[floridatennisdude]

Originally Posted by Cindysphinx

Sure. I'm wondering what the actual rule is when it is phrased that way.

I guess a lawyers interpretation of it would be, yes, you need to vacate if you've played over an hour and someone shows up.

I believe that if you are a civilized person on either end of the situation, you simply end play at the nearest, most convenient stopping point. If I am playing, I'd finish the set or play a tb instead of a 3rd. If I'm waiting, I should expect my wait to be no longer than 60 minutes.

A routine conversation would be:

"hey, how much longer are you guys going to be?"
- "we are at 2-2 in the 2nd set. We will finish this up and you can have the court."
"ok, thanks. I appreciate it"

[TomT]

Originally Posted by Cindysphinx

Hold up.

"one hour limit when people are waiting" means you have to stop if you have been playing an hour before anyone is waiting?

Say you start at 9. I show up at 10:01. You have to get off? I thought it meant you can make the people wait for one hour or until you are finished, whichever comes first.

At the free public courts where I usually play it's actually posted that there's a one hour time limit. Period. But there's nobody there to enforce it, so of course if nobody's waiting for a court, then you just keep playing -- and when it does get busy most people are pretty fair about not overdoing it on their court time, but since nobody's there to enforce it, then if I started at 9 and I wasn't finished at 10:01 when you showed up, then I might be tempted to say that I got on the court a bit after 9. Or, I might tell you that we got on at 9, that we're almost finished, and ask if you would mind if we finished our match.

The thing is, because the one hour time limit is posted, then no matter when you show up, you know that you're not going to have to wait more than an hour (unless there are already people waiting for each court, but I've never seen it that busy and I'm there a lot). And there's a practice wall, so you can kill a few minutes there.

At the other courts where I play it's either $6/hour for nonreserved courts, or a yearly membership fee to reserve courts in one hour blocks, and the one hour time limit is strictly enforced.

[Avles]

Originally Posted by floridatennisdude

I guess a lawyers interpretation of it would be, yes, you need to vacate if you've played over an hour and someone shows up.

I believe that if you are a civilized person on either end of the situation, you simply end play at the nearest, most convenient stopping point. If I am playing, I'd finish the set or play a tb instead of a 3rd. If I'm waiting, I should expect my wait to be no longer than 60 minutes.

A routine conversation would be:

"hey, how much longer are you guys going to be?"
- "we are at 2-2 in the 2nd set. We will finish this up and you can have the court."
"ok, thanks. I appreciate it"

Exactly right. Balancing "first come first served" with consideration for others is not actually that difficult.

[zerowords]

Originally Posted by OrangePower

Reservation system is financially viable - don't know why you think otherwise. And charging does not make something semi-private... many example of public services / facilities that require a fee, e.g. parking meters, public transport, etc. If it is heavily/majority subsidized, then it is public.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there.

More importantly, why not allow half the courts to be reserved? That leaves half the courts as always free to use, and of course the reservable courts also remain free if not being used by someone with a reservation. But then someone who wants to guarantee a period of availability at a certain time, and is willing to pay a nominal amount for this, has that choice also.


Agreed.

But your preference for hitting seems to be influencing your opinion in terms of minimum time one should get to use the court for. You can fit a useful hit into an hour, but not a match. Matches need two hours. So that would need to be the minimum. At which point there is less practical value in having any limit in place. An example:

At the local park there are 6 courts. Many people come to play after work. At 5:30, the courts are empty, but by 6pm they are usually full. That means that with a 2 hour limit, someone arriving shortly after 6 is going to need to wait 1.5 hours or so - assuming everyone is playing by the rules. Does that seem worthwhile?

I have developed a FREE, no-adds, system for online reservations systems. I believe it would work for many municipalities and would like to recommend some try it. I hope my local county will give a trial run for one venue with 2 courts, making only one of the 2 reservable. (The county would have to supply the necessary signage.) A link describing the free app ReservationSchedule.appspot.com is below.

I have some tentative rules for the courts, and would like to receive suggestions on improving them.


******************Draft rules below******************
Courts can be reserved x days in advance.
Courts can not be reserved for x hours and y minutes in advance.
Only one reservation can be made by one group until that reservation is finished playing.
Reservations maximum lengths are as follows (basically, 30 minutes per player).
1 player: 30 minutes
2 players: 1 hour
3 players: 90 minutes
4 or more players: 2 hours

A 5 minute grace period is allowed for late starts: if the group reserving the court is not present within 5 minutes of the beginning of their reserved time slot, they forfiet their reservation.

Reservations are made online at ReservationSchedule.appspot.com where a time stamp verifies the time at which the reservation was made. So it is best to print out the reservation when you make it for the time stamp to be at that time. It can be printed to paper or copied to a note on a mobile device.

All reservations are free.
(7 days is max for this online system.)

It is advisable to make one or more courts unreservable.
******************Draft rules above******************

Please see my announcement of the online app at this link.

http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showt...74#post6940874

Brian in Atlanta

[Alchemy-Z]

one of our public court facilities (18 courts) has a reservation option. it's $2 an hour (per player) you pay up front for the time you want and they give you a 15min warning of when your time is up.

They also have ball machines for rent/hold clinics 2 nights a week and a pro shop.

[r2473]

Originally Posted by zerowords

I have developed a FREE, no-adds, system for online reservations systems.

Everyone will just reserve lots of time slots. If they can make it, great. If not, no loss. So guys that abuse the system "win", and those that play by the rules, "lose".

At the University where I work, you can reserve the courts that the team plays / practices on up to a week in advance (when its not being used by the team, for lessons, etc). Up until a few years ago, they ***said*** that if you didn't show up, you still had to pay, but it was never enforced (and everyone knew it). So the courts were always reserved and courts were always empty. Presumably guys that wanted to play were sitting at home.

You need to charge something for reservations. Of course on courts like you are describing, nobody wants to pay (they **should** be free).

Anyway, good luck with your reservation system.

[zerowords]

Originally Posted by r2473

Everyone will just reserve lots of time slots. If they can make it, great. If not, no loss. So guys that abuse the system "win", and those that play by the rules, "lose".

[snip]

Anyway, good luck with your reservation system.

I worry a lot that people will abuse this honor system recommendation. But maybe there are communities where this will work as designed.

Such feedback is very valuable.
And thanks much for wishing luck.