AUSTIN (KXAN) — Finding parking in Austin can be tricky at times.
This summer, pulling up to park at the city’s pools may be more difficult than ever before.
Due to a lack of lifeguards, the Austin Parks and Recreation Department will only open 15 of its 34 pools.
Daniel Teloo and his family weren’t waiting around to find parking at the Deep Eddy Pool.
“Normally, we’d come here pretty late and it’s usually packed,” he said. “Today we just kind of decided to take the easier route and come in pretty early.”
Austin resident Samaia Castillo is worried that the remaining pools will be overly packed with people.
“Pools in my neighborhood that I can walk to aren’t going to be open,” she said. “That’s going to be kind of difficult.”
Starting next Monday, the City will open another 10 pools and bring its total to 15.
One of these is in West Enfield Neighborhood Park, where David Daily takes his 2-year-old son.
“The parking problems are going to be significant,” he said. “I mean all that we have here are the parking spots on Enfield Road.”
Daily believes that this could cause chaos in his nearby neighborhood.
“I expect the neighborhood is not going to like the influx of cars,” he said. “People are going to have to walk a ways to get here.”
The City of Austin says the only way to open even more pools, is to bring in even more lifeguards.
Mary Hunter regularly swims at the Deep Eddy Pool.
“I think you have to pay the lifeguards more, she said. “Gas is expensive for them to drive to the pools.”
According to PARD, city lifeguards make between $16-$19 per hour.
According to the department, they’ve trained and hired 276 lifeguards. However, it would need an additional 500 lifeguards to operate all city pools this summer.
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