My city has a pretty nice park in it. This past spring, they spent a ton of money installing almost two dozen new tennis courts.
I haven’t played tennis in years, but the wife and I have been trying to be more active and get in shape. So we saw that there were all these new courts, and they were usually pretty empty, so why not? We bought a couple of cheap racquets and some balls, and drove over to the park.
There, we discovered that the courts were behind a pin-code locked gate. A big sign said, “Open to the public 5AM to 9PM” and had a QR code under it. I’m abnormally paranoid about QR codes posted in unmonitored public spaces, so I went to the city’s website and clicked around until I find out what was going on: you need to scan the code to go to a website to reserve a court for a certain time slot, and then they will email you with a unique code for the gate five minutes before your reservation.
This is, on its own, an insane system. The only upside I could come up with is that, if you save the link and book in advance, you’ll always be sure to have a court to use. But, again, there’s nearly two dozen of them and I’ve never seen more than three in use at a time.
But we were there, we had our equipment, so I caved and began signing up for this bullshit. They had me create a username and password, and finally I was able to select a court, select a time, and click “reserve.”
Except that when I clicked, it took me to another website to make another login. This was not a .gov, but some private company that I guess the city contracted with? And to make a login there, they needed my email, my phone number, my DOB, my zip code, and even my gender.
So to play a game on a public court, in a public park, in a city that I pay taxes to, I need to surrender tons of personal identifying information to a third party? Fucking why?! Who thought this was a good idea? What part of the community does this serve?
So, yeah, I’m taking the tennis stuff back to the store, I guess, and the spouse and I will need to find another hobby.
Are there no other courts available to you? We live in a very rural area but we go to the highschool to play on the weekends/evenings. It’s free and unlocked as opposed to the gym where we have to check in inside to get a key.
Our high-school courts aren’t open to the public. Every few months some unwitting adults go over to try to play outside of school hours, and the cops come and kick them out.
There’s a smaller park in a suburb nearby, but there’s only three courts and they always seem occupied. My in-laws live near a park with a few more courts that is actually open to the public, but it’s a 15-minute drive to get there. Part of the initial appeal was that the park with all the new courts was barely a mile from our apartment. All the extra hoops to use it are frustrating.
If i had the time and money, id be tempted to but a tennis net and set it up right out side the gated courts. If theres pavement nearby id use that but if not, roads work. Really drive home the absurdity of this whole situation. Maybe get the news involved.
Im a petty person when it comes to injustices.
Maybe you can convince the nearby suburb to add online reservations for their courts so people can be able to go play without having to check if they are empty or wait for others to finish their matches.