It's easy to oppose turf without looking at any of the facts or the actual fields themselves (photo above is from Conway Park halfway through the fall soccer season. Lincoln Park was in worse condition). I don't know of anyone that supports synthetic turf that isn't a committed environmentalist (we too, choose to live in Somerville). The big difference is that we are realists who use the fields and have looked at the data that proves you can't grow grass unless you radically reduce recreation in our urban city.
You can call and encourage the city "to make a real plan AND maintain grass", but you'd have just as much luck demanding the mayor solve world peace. The only way we'll get grass to survive AND keep our fields available for public use, is to augment our limited spaces with synthetic turf which will take the heavy traffic that is a reality in our densely populated city.
We all love and want more grass. This isn't a grass vs turf debate. It's about what sort of compromises we have to make in order for grass to grow. Either we radically restrict play (by 85% per the city's proposal) or we selectively add synthetic turf (13% of Lincoln Park) so that the grass will thrive everywhere else and we can support our growing demand for healthy recreation for ALL citizens.
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Date: 2016-02-05 06:59 pm (UTC)It's easy to oppose turf without looking at any of the facts or the actual fields themselves (photo above is from Conway Park halfway through the fall soccer season. Lincoln Park was in worse condition). I don't know of anyone that supports synthetic turf that isn't a committed environmentalist (we too, choose to live in Somerville). The big difference is that we are realists who use the fields and have looked at the data that proves you can't grow grass unless you radically reduce recreation in our urban city.
You can call and encourage the city "to make a real plan AND maintain grass", but you'd have just as much luck demanding the mayor solve world peace. The only way we'll get grass to survive AND keep our fields available for public use, is to augment our limited spaces with synthetic turf which will take the heavy traffic that is a reality in our densely populated city.
We all love and want more grass. This isn't a grass vs turf debate. It's about what sort of compromises we have to make in order for grass to grow. Either we radically restrict play (by 85% per the city's proposal) or we selectively add synthetic turf (13% of Lincoln Park) so that the grass will thrive everywhere else and we can support our growing demand for healthy recreation for ALL citizens.