If a city is going to invest in any outdoor recreation facility ... the project should include basic amenities, such as bathrooms as well as changing stalls. No sense scrimping on swim facilities

While travelling home from Toronto along Highway 401 this past weekend, an afternoon stopover at Cobourg Beach got me thinking about outdoor recreation facilities here in the West Island. Cobourg Beach is about 120 kilometres east of Toronto and offers a sprawling public beach on the shores of Lake Ontario. It was packed with visitors the hot and sunny Sunday we stopped by. The family had planned this day trip and so we had packed a beach bag at the ready. You pay for parking, but admission to the beach is free. What immediately caught our attention was the lack of changing rooms. Unless you were a toddler or baby, the only solution was to change in a toilet stall. (Although the town’s website indicates bathroom and changing rooms are available at the beach, my family found no separate changing rooms, only the toilet stall option). There was almost a 30-minute wait at the women’s washroom, whether you had to use the facility or just wanted to change in or out of a bathing suit. The men’s lineup was a bit quicker, but still an annoyance. One man who walked by said he had waited 15 minutes in line not realizing the urinals were free the whole time. Most of the men were waiting in line to change in a stall. One woman quipped to my wife that the beach was free, so we shouldn’t complain about the lack of changing rooms. I disagree. While the $685,000 price tag attached to the Valois Park splash pad raised eyebrows, I applaud Pointe-Claire for including a bathroom, a few changing stalls and a drinking fountain in its small chalet. The splash pad opened to rave reviews last summer. (There had been complaints lodged earlier this summer that the stalls were locked while the splash pad was in use. It was reported as a technical glitch. The overnight locking system is automated.) The Valois splash pad chalet was well planned and a welcome addition to the park that also has a chalet next to the playground, tennis and basketball courts, mini-soccer fields and baseball diamond. I recall being annoyed taking my kids to the Walters Park splash pad several years ago, near Lakeshore Dr. and Pine Beach Blvd. in Dorval. It was the first such facility to open in the West Island in 2009 and did not have changing stalls. After a couple of years, a blue portable toilet was installed at the park for “emergencies.” But, to this day, there are still no changing stalls at the popular splash pad. This “fail” isn’t typical of Dorval. The city generally offers excellent recreational facilities. A $20-million aquatic centre on Dawson Ave. opened in 2015, just down the street from newly rebuilt and refurbished Walters Pool (which is not located at Walters Park but is near the Dorval arena and just north of the Sarto Desnoyer Community Centre). Walters Pool, by the way, already had a well-equipped chalet (washroom and changing rooms) and a hot tub before the most recent renovations. If a city is going to invest in any outdoor recreation facility, be they pools or soccer fields, the project should include basic amenities, such as bathrooms as well as changing stalls if bathing suits are involved. Do your city’s parks and community pool(s) meet your standards for changing rooms or bathrooms? Do you ever wonder why some outdoor pools have bathroom/changing stalls that were seemingly built before building codes existed, while others have spacious and modernlooking chalets?