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Bitter Lake Pickleball and Tennis Courts

Resurfacing

Introduction

This document presents the Seattle Metro Pickleball Association's recommendations for establishing equitable tennis and pickleball court lines on the Bitter Lake Playfield tennis courts in Seattle.

Recommendations

1. Create 12 Pickleball Courts

The space is large enough to accommodate 12 regulation-size pickleball courts. Limiting the number of pickleball courts to 8 would be a poor allocation of resources.

On the picture below, slide the blue dot towards the left to compare the recommended layout to the currently planned 8-court layout.

Waiting area Waiting area 7.5' 5' 10' 10' 10' 10' 10' 5' 7.5' 8' 8' 8' 8'
20' 25' 25' 25' 20' 8' 8' 8' 8'

2. Include Two Waiting Areas Inside The Fence

Pickleball players need a space to congregate and socialize while waiting for a game. We recommend allocating space for two separate waiting areas inside the fenced area.

If we had only a single waiting area, players would have to cross five courts to reach the furthest courts. This would cause a lot of game interruptions.

3. Adopt Independent Lines

Overlapping lines create confusion. We recommend adopting a pickleball court layout that doesn't have any pickleball lines overlapping with tennis lines.

4. Adopt Contrasting Line Colors

We recommend any of the following color schemes:

OR

Both of these options use traditional colors for the tennis court and tennis lines. They also provide good contrast across all colors. The first one offers the best color contrast between the court area and yellow balls.

A specialist should pick the exact color shades to provide suitable contrast.

On the picture below, slide the blue dot towards the left to compare the two recommended color schemes.

7.5' 5' 10' 10' 10' 10' 10' 5' 7.5' 8' 8' 8' 8'
7.5' 5' 10' 10' 10' 10' 10' 5' 7.5' 8' 8' 8' 8'

5. Adopt Blended Line Intersections

We recommend the adoption of blended line intersections for the most egalitarian treatment of all sports.

If painting blended line intersections is not feasible, we recommend the adoption of crossover line intersections. Since many more pickleball players than tennis players will be using these courts, and since tennis players do have the option of playing at over a hundred courts lined exclusively for tennis, we recommend that the pickleball lines be drawn on top.

6. Adopt an Age Friendly Surface

We recommend the use of a cushioned surface to help protect the knees of older players.

The city's current court resurfacing budget might not allow for a cushioned surface. If that is the case, give a chance to the pickleball and tennis player community to raise the appropriate funds for it.

Overview

Guidelines for Recommendations

Six guidelines

These guidelines shaped our recommendations:

Make efficient use of the available space

When to opt for space optimization

Pilot program

When you introduce pickleball in a new area, it is reasonable to first try out options on a small scale. Early on, space optimization is not the main concern. For example, you might run a pickleball pilot project by developing a few courts in different configurations. An early option might be to add pickleball lines in such a way that a single tennis court can be used as a single pickleball court, as is the case at the Observatory Courts in Queen Anne. Or, another option is to put two pickleball courts per tennis court as was done at the Walt Hundley courts in West Seattle.

Most likely, at the conclusion of a successful pilot program, you will have discovered that pickleball is a sport with a strong social component. People like to play where they know they will find many other players.

Full-fledged program

When you exit the pilot program and decide to support pickleball as any other sport, it is important to recognize that having many pickleball courts in a single location is essential to the development of a pickleball community.

In a full-fledged pickleball program, it makes little sense to paint lines for a single pickleball court on a single tennis court when you can easily fit two or four pickleball courts in that space. You should be able to fit six to eight pickleball courts on a double tennis court, and ten to twelve pickleball courts on a triple tennis court.

Why opt for space optimization?

You wouldn't want to paint lines for two tennis courts when there is room for three courts. Why would you paint lines for two pickleball courts when there is room for three or four?

Seattle and Seattle Parks face a strong and increasing demand for pickleball courts. Let's make sure we make the best possible use of the space that is available.

How to optimize use of the available space

Space-use optimization when adding pickleball lines to existing tennis courts is more of an art than a science. The general ideas underlying it are to:

Let's review both basic facts and principles underlying space optimization for courts.

A typical playing surface area for a tennis court is 60 feet wide and 120 feet long.

60' 120'

The official pickleball rule book, rule 2.A.3 says:

"The recommended minimum playing surface area measures 30 feet wide and 60 feet long."

30' 60'

So, you can fit exactly four pickleball courts on a typical tennis court.

To keep things interesting, sometimes the tennis play area is not a rectangle. It is more of a rectangle with the corners cut off at a angle. And there doesn't seem to be any standard way of cutting the corners.

60' 120'

For recreational play, tennis courts are often squeezed together. Although each court is supposed to have 10 feet of extra space on each side, two tennis courts laid side-by-side sometimes have only 10 to 12 feet between them instead of 20.

Something similar can be done for pickleball play. Pickleball courts laid side-by-side might be squeezed together and have fewer than 10 feet between them.

Note that this squeezing applies to the width of the play area but not its length. Safety and playability dictate a minimum of 8 feet of space behind pickleball baselines.

All tennis courts are oriented north to south. The Association of Tennis Professionals' Official 2020 Rulebook says in section 6.01.B.2:

"Courts shall be laid out with the long axis north and south; however, geographic considerations may modify this orientation in order to minimize the adverse effect of serving into the sun."

The same adverse effect holds for pickleball, even though it sometimes may seem practical to orient pickleball courts east to west to fit into a less-than-optimal space. To experience play on an east-to-west oriented court, go visit the pickleball courts at the International School in Bellevue, WA, on a sunny evening.

If your court is protected from the rising and setting sun by a hill, a tall building, or tall and dense vegetation, then using an east to west orientation might be suitable.

30' 60' right net location mark

Include a waiting area

Why a waiting area?

People waiting for a game of pickleball Usually, when people decide to go play tennis, they form a twosome or foursome and convene at a specific time and location to play together.

While some pickleball players use the same process to organize games, pickleball play is often much more convivial and fluid. During open play, pickleball players may come and go over several hours. Many more pickleball players might congregate on the courts than there are available spots to play. Each game lasts 15 to 20 minutes. After a game ends, the players involved rotate out, and some of the players who were waiting rotate in. If there are 10 games going at the same time, a new game starts every few minutes.

One waiting area or two?

The larger the number of people with whom you interact, the more likely you will find people with whom you enjoy playing. Therefore, it is preferable to have one larger waiting area that can accommodate everyone rather than two smaller waiting areas than will only hold half as many people.

However, when having a single waiting area would require players to step across many courts to reach the court they are going to occupy, it makes sense to create two waiting areas instead. Essentially, we are trading community size for ease of court access.

The ideal solution: One waiting area, walking around

The ideal is to have a way to get from a single waiting area to any court without having to walk through other courts. The drawing below illustrates this concept: The black and red lines represent how people move between the waiting area and their court without having to walk across any other courts.

Waiting area

A practical solution: one waiting area, up to 5 courts side by side

When adding pickleball lines to existing tennis courts, the simplest and cheapest solution is often to locate the waiting area on the courts, and have people cross other courts to access the court on which they are going to play. This works well enough with 3 courts side by side at the Shoreview Park courts and with 4 courts side by side at the East Green Lake courts.

Waiting area

With 4 courts side-by-side, players have to cross 1.5 courts on average, and up to 3 courts when they travel back and forth between their court and the waiting area.

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A practical solution: two waiting areas, 6 courts or more side by side

The more courts people have to cross to reach the court they are going to use, the more game interruptions this causes. With 6 or more pickleball courts side-by-side, it makes sense to create multiple waiting areas to limit the number of courts that need to be crossed to access the one on which you are going to play.

The design below has 7 courts and a single waiting area. Before and after play, players have to cross 3 courts on average, and up to 6 courts.

Waiting area

The improved design below has 7 courts and two waiting areas. Players now only have to cross 1.3 courts on average, and 3 courts at the most.

Waiting area Waiting area

Here is the same design with two rows of 7 courts each. Each waiting area serves 7 courts. Players still only have to cross 1.3 courts on average, and 3 courts at the most.

Waiting area Waiting area

Each waiting area could cater to different skill levels. For instance, the waiting area on the left could be used by players looking for a lower level game, while the waiting area on the right could be used by players looking for a higher level game. The exact game level isn't important. The goal is to have about the same number of players in each waiting area.

How many people will be waiting?

In our experience, at the peak play times, there will be up to one-and-a-half times as many people waiting as there are people playing pickleball. With fourteen pickleball courts, there will be 56 people playing and up to 84 people waiting to play. With twelve pickleball courts, there will be 48 people playing and up to 72 people waiting to play.

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Avoid court-line overlap

What we mean by "overlapping" lines

In this document, we distinguish crossing lines from overlapping lines.

The following two squares have crossing lines.

Crossing lines are unavoidable on multi-sport courts.

The following two squares have overlapping lines.

Unsurprisingly, it's entirely possible to design multi-sport courts to minimize the number of overlapping lines.

Why overlapping lines matter

When you have two overlapping lines, one line is often presented as being on top of the other.

Here the yellow line is on top.

Here the red line is on top.

Imagine you have to play a game that requires that you to stand in the red square and not step out of bounds. You can pick any of the following four courts. Which one is your favorite? Which one is your least favorite?

The one with the red square on the bottom?

The one with the red square on top?

The one where neither square is on top?

The one where the squares do not overlap?

The case against overlapping lines

Overlapping lines create confusion because they require that players quickly determine which lines are relevant and which are not. The more complex the overlap design is — involving partial lines, extended lines, and irrelevant lines — the more confusing it is. Imagine playing a sport on that confusing array of lines.

Take a look at existing multi-sport athletic fields as an example.

These three Magnuson Park multi-sport fields are designed to have almost no line overlap.
The Garfield High School multi-sport field is designed to have almost no line overlap.

All of these fields were designed to have very few overlapping lines across various sports:

Shared pickleball and tennis courts with overlapping lines creates confusion. Flatly, the sport that ends up with its lines on top gets privileged treatment over the other. The privileged sports' players can focus on their line color and ignore the other colors. Whichever sports ends up with its lines on the bottom gets shortchanged. Its players have to sort out which lines of the "other" color are relevant and which ones are not, on the fly, in the midst of a fast game.

Designs for multi-sport courts can and should avoid privileging a particular sport.

The following video shows two tennis courts with lines painted for six pickleball courts. The drone images clearly show all of them from above at the 15-second mark. Notice that pickleball courts on the top and bottom of the screen share a sideline with a tennis court. The pickleball courts in the middle do not share any lines with any tennis court.

If you play on the top or bottom pickleball courts, most of your pickleball court lines are black, except for a sideline which is partially white. You have to ignore most of the white lines, except for that one side line. When the pace of the game is fast, it's challenging to remember which lines are relevant and which ones are not.

In the same video, at the 1-minute mark, you see a pickleball player serving a ball. That person and their partner then make their way to what they think is the pickleball non-volley line. However, they mistakenly stop at a white tennis line that is located about two feet from the non-volley line. That particular white line should be ignored for pickleball. Yet this becomes a perfect example of the confusion created by the design of this blended court where some of the white lines are included in the play, while others are to be ignored.

If we were to move the top and bottom pickleball courts a foot towards the middle courts, they would no longer have any line overlap with the tennis courts. A minor design change such as this would greatly help pickleball players who could then ignore all white lines since their courts would be made exclusively of black lines. And it's hard to see how this simple change would inconvenience tennis players.

Not incidentally, the the pickleball rules clearly state that all lines should be of the same color, a rule that should steer us away from shared tennis court lines.

The case for overlapping lines

When pickleball lines are first added to tennis courts, tennis players are often concerned that the pickleball lines will interfere with tennis play. They ask to see as few pickleball lines as possible. This means that they ask for tennis lines overlapping pickleball lines.

Too often this means that tennis players have court lines all in one color, while pickleball players have to contend with pickleball court lines partially made of tennis lines.

Tennis players have the luxury to ignore all pickleball lines. Pickleball players, however, must figure out which tennis lines are in play and which are not. Moreover, different pickleball courts in the same location, or even two sides of the same pickleball court can end up having different line color patterns.

It does not have to be that way. All the confusion of lines is unnecessary. If the courts are laid out so that tennis and pickleball lines do not overlap, then all players can completely ignore the other sport's lines.

For the record, there is nothing in the ITF Rules of Tennis, Association of Tennis Professionals' Official 2020 Rulebook or the Women's Tennis Association's 2020 Official Rulebook that specifies that tennis and pickleball lines should be overlapping.

Optimize line colors

Tennis court lines color rules

The 2020 ITF Rules of Tennis published by the International Tennis Federation say:

"all lines of the court shall be of the same colour clearly contrasting with the colour of the surface."
The ITF rules do not say that the lines must be white.

However, both the Association of Tennis Professionals' Official 2020 Rulebook and the Women's Tennis Association's 2020 Official Rulebook specify that the:

"lines of the court shall be white."

Tennis blended-lines color rules

To promote tennis amongst younger children, the United States Tennis Association has developed the "10 and Under Tennis" tennis format which uses smaller courts, smaller rackets and slower balls. Doing so, they allowed for lines for the smaller courts to be painted on existing regular tennis courts using "blended" lines.

All three tennis rule books specify that blended lines should be

"within the same colour family as the background playing surface."

Moreover, the United States Tennis Association specifies that

"Currently, courts with permanent blended lines and standard line markings are authorized for professional play by the ITF for both Men's and Women's $15,000 and $25,000 events."
and
"However, ITF Women's $60,000, $80,000 and $100,000, as well as ATP Challengers, are not allowed to have blended lines. Courts with permanent blended lines may be used as practice courts only at these events."

Pickleball court lines color rules

Both the International Federation of Pickleball's 2020 Official Rulebook and the United States Pickleball Association 2020 Official Rulebook say that
"All lines should be [...] of the same color, clearly contrasting with the color of the playing surface."

Line color selection

How to select pickleball and tennis court line colors

Are you going to host professional tennis matches?
↓ Yes
↓ No Check with the sanctioning professional tennis organizations
Are you going to host tennis matches sanctioned by a tennis organization?
↓ Yes
↓ No Check with the sanctioning organization. Most likely, you will not be able to create a true multi-sport court: You will have to use white tennis lines and blended pickleball lines.
Avoid overlapping lines.
Use tennis and pickleball line colors that are clearly contrasting with the color of the playing surface.
For instance:
  • paint the court surface green
  • paint the tennis lines white
  • paint the pickleball lines red or yellow
Avoid overlapping lines.

How to select pickleball and tennis court line colors in Seattle

Tennis courts that will not see USTA-sanctioned play do not need to strictly follow USTA color guidelines and can use player-friendly contrasting colors for pickleball lines.

Are you going to host professional tennis matches?
Yes
↓ No Check with the sanctioning professional tennis organizations
Are you going to host tennis matches sanctioned by a tennis organization?
↓ Yes, at the Amy Yee Tennis Center and Lower Woodland Park according to Seattle parks and Recreation's Pickleball Pilot Study Report, section F.1.2
↓ No At the Amy Yee Tennis Center and Lower Woodland Park
Check with the sanctioning organization. Most likely, you will not be able to create a true multi-sport court: You will have to use white tennis lines and blended pickleball lines.
Avoid overlapping lines.
Everywhere but at the Amy Yee Tennis Center and Lower Woodland Park
Use tennis and pickleball line colors that are clearly contrasting with the color of the playing surface.
For instance:
  • paint the court surface green
  • paint the tennis lines white
  • paint the pickleball lines red or yellow
Avoid overlapping lines.

Is there really no other solution?

If your facility is unlikely to be hosting sanctioned professional tennis tournaments, you can get creative.

You could for instance consider adopting a coloring scheme similar to what was done at the Bobby Riggs Tennis Center around 2015 as shown in this video at the 2:58 mark.

Below is an alternate option that emphasizes the tennis courts but has pickleball lines using a single color.

7' 5' 8' 8' 8' 8' 6' 8' 8' 8' 8'

Optimize line intersections

Line intersection options

Good: Accommodating

This is the option you might have to choose if you are adding pickleball lines to your tennis courts but need to be able to host sanctioned tennis matches. Check the sanctioning's tennis organization's rulebook for exact specifications.

This option communicates that tennis is the primary sport and you are simply accommodating pickleball players.

Better: Crossover

This option favors one sport over the other. This is a perfectly good option if the red lines will be used a lot more often than the yellow ones.

This is what is done on Seattle multi-sport athletic fields.

Best: Blended

Blending the line intersections is the perfect option when fair treatment of everyone is important.

Support Healthy Aging

The "Age Friendly Seattle Action Plan"

After the World Health organization (WHO) published its Global Age-friendly Cities guide, the city of Seattle developed its own Age Friendly Seattle Action Plan which states:

"Age Friendly Seattle supports parks and other green spaces [...] that can be used and enjoyed by people of all ages and abilities."
and
"Age Friendly Seattle supports learning, fitness, social, cultural, and spiritual activities for older adults as well as intergenerational activities that are accessible, affordable, safe, and fun."
and
"Goal 5.4: Create opportunities for intergenerational activities [...] and other programs."

Age-friendly pickleball courts

Aging pickleball players sometimes find their knees don't do well when playing extensively on very hard surfaces. Fortunately, the sports court industry has developed a method to apply several layers of cushioned rubber between the cement or asphalt base and the top layer of paint.

Since pickleball is one of very few intergenerational physical activities that can be used and enjoyed by people of all ages and abilities, it makes sense to use a cushioned surface when resurfacing courts.

Current State of Affairs

What's going on?

The Seattle Parks Department plans to resurface the Bitter Lake tennis courts located by the Bitter Lake Community Center.

What does it look like right now?

Four side-by-side tennis courts located close to the community center. One tennis court has unofficial and very faded lines for two pickleball courts, one on each side of its net. The other three tennis courts do not have any painted pickleball lines.

There are expansion joints between the tennis courts. They are about one-inch wide and grass growing in them. The tennis courts on each side of the joints are level with each other.

In the drawing below, the expansion joints are drawn in green.

Pickleball court expert Tom Widden recommends that the joints be cleaned, treated with a material that will suppress vegetation growth, and topped with a filler that will allow the expansion joints to continue their work while allowing the various layers above to go on smoothly to form a playable surface so we can have pickleball courts that overlap the expansion joints.

Seattle Parks' current plan

The current plan calls for lines for 8 pickleball courts

Paula Hoff, a Strategic Advisor in the Superintendent's Office, communicated the Park Department's intention to have lines for 8 pickleball courts painted on the Bitter Lake tennis courts.

They didn't provide a layout, although it is likely to look like the drawing that follows, where we represented the tennis courts in red and the pickleball courts in blue. All Seattle courts that have been made to accommodate pickleball lines until now (June 2020) have followed the same pattern: one pickleball court on each side of each tennis net.

More ▽

Pros and Cons ▽

Isn't there room for more than 8 courts?

Here is a 14-court layout

Courts

The design below leaves a 5- to 7-foot space between pickleball court sidelines. Having variable space between the pickleball courts enables us to avoid having overlapping pickleball and tennis lines.

Toggle the "Display Rulers" switch beneath the drawing to see the most relevant measurements.

Waiting area

This design does not leave room for a sufficiently sized waiting area on the courts.

The 14 pickleball courts accommodate 56 people engaged in pickleball play simultaneously. In theory, we could expect needing to also accommodate up to 84 people waiting to play for a total of 140 people.

In practice, given the limited parking situation, it is unlikely that we would ever see 140 people congregating on this location to play pickleball. If there ever was that many people at this location, the people waiting would have to overflow to the adjacent playfield.

More ▽

On the picture below, slide the blue dot towards the left to compare this design to the 8-court layout currently planned by the Seattle Parks Department.

9' 6.5' 5' 7' 7' 5' 6.5' 9' 8' 8' 8' 8'
20' 25' 25' 25' 20' 8' 8' 8' 8'

Pros and Cons ▽

14 courts with a waiting area

14 courts with a large waiting area on one side

Courts

This design leaves a 5- to 7.5-foot space between pickleball court sidelines. Having variable space between the pickleball courts enables us to avoid having overlapping pickleball and tennis lines.

This design also offers a 14.5-foot wide space between the left fence and the closest pickleball sideline.

Toggle the "Display Rulers" switch beneath the drawing to see the most relevant measurements.

Waiting area

This layout provides for a waiting area included within the fence.

Players who are waiting for a turn to play typically congregate on one side of the court to socialize and coordinate order of play. Having a single larger waiting area on one side of the enclosure is generally preferable to having a smaller area on each side.

However, given the large number of courts, the amount of traffic required to access and vacate the courts from a single waiting area would be unruly: players would have to cross an average of 3 courts to reach the court on which they are going to play.
If a game lasts about 14 minutes, 4 players would navigate back from their court to the waiting area and 4 new players will navigate from the waiting area to the newly vacated court on average once every single minute.

More ▽

On the picture below, slide the blue dot towards the left to compare this design to the previous one.

Waiting area 9.5' 5' 5' 7.5' 7' 5' 5' 6' 5' 8' 8' 8' 8'
9' 6.5' 5' 7' 7' 5' 6.5' 9' 8' 8' 8' 8'

Pros and Cons ▽

14 courts with a small waiting area on each side

Courts

This design compresses the pickleball courts towards the middle to leave extra room on the left and right edge to create two small waiting areas, one on each side.

More ▽

Waiting area

This layout provides for two waiting areas included within the fence.

Players who are waiting for a turn to play typically congregate on one side of the court to socialize and coordinate order of play.

With 10 courts or fewer, having a single larger waiting area on one side of the enclosure is preferable to having a smaller area on each side as it promotes community building.
With 14 courts, the amount of traffic required to access and vacate the courts will be much reduced if players are split amongst two waiting areas.

More ▽

On the picture below, slide the blue dot towards the left to compare this design to the one without waiting areas.

Waiting area Waiting area 7.5' 5' 5' 5' 5' 5' 5' 5' 5' 7.5' 8' 8' 8' 8'
9' 6.5' 5' 7' 7' 5' 6.5' 9' 8' 8' 8' 8'

Pros and Cons ▽

14 courts, fewer lines, more confusion

Here is a 14-court layout with way fewer lines

This layout might look more pleasant to the eye when viewed from above because there are fewer lines than in the previous layouts.

But when you play, your court might be made of some lines of one color and some lines of another color. When focusing on the action, it's not always easy to remember which lines are relevant and which ones are not.

It is not just that your court is made of two different color lines. It is also that you will find on your court some lines of a specific color that are part of your court, and some other lines of that same color that are not part of your court.

Also, relevant lines will vary from court to court, and from one-side of a pickleball court to the other side of the same pickleball court.

On the picture below, slide the blue dot towards the left to compare a pickleball-on-top design to a tennis-on-top design. The line segments highlighted in green will switch color as you slide the blue dot.

More ▽

Pros and Cons ▽

12-courts

Twelve courts with a small waiting area on each side

Courts

There are several ways to squeeze 14 pickleball courts here and we proposed several 14-court solutions above. However, these 14-court solutions don't leave much room between the pickleball courts.

The 12-court solution below gives up two courts in exchange for regulation-sized courts and two adequate waiting areas.

On the picture below, slide the blue dot towards the left to compare this design to an equivalent 14-court design.

More ▽

Waiting area

Players who are waiting for a turn to play typically congregate on one side of the court to socialize and coordinate order of play.

With 10 courts or fewer, having a single larger waiting area on one side of the enclosure is preferable to having a smaller area on each side as it promotes community building.
With 12 courts, the amount of traffic required to access and vacate the courts will be much reduced if players are split amongst two waiting areas.

More ▽
Waiting area Waiting area 7.5' 5' 10' 10' 10' 10' 10' 5' 7.5' 8' 8' 8' 8'
Waiting area Waiting area 7.5' 5' 5' 5' 5' 5' 5' 5' 5' 7.5' 8' 8' 8' 8'

Pros and Cons ▽

12-courts with a large waiting area on one side

Courts

There is actually room for 14 pickleball courts here and we proposed several 14=court solutions above. However, these 14-court solutions don't leave much room between the pickleball courts.

The 12-court solution below gives up two courts in exchange for regulation-sized courts and one large waiting areas.

More ▽

Waiting area

This layout provides for a waiting area included within the fence.

Players who are waiting for a turn to play typically congregate on one side of the court to socialize and coordinate order of play.

With 10 courts or fewer, having a single larger waiting area on one side of the enclosure is preferable to having a smaller area on each side as it promotes community building.
With 12 courts, having a single waiting area will create too much traffic to access and vacate the courts. Travel will be much reduced if players are split amongst two waiting areas.

More ▽

On the picture below, slide the blue dot towards the left to compare this design to the previous one.

Waiting area 16' 5' 9' 10' 11' 9' 10' 5' 8' 8' 8' 8'
Waiting area Waiting area 7.5' 5' 10' 10' 10' 10' 10' 5' 7.5' 8' 8' 8' 8'

Pros and Cons ▽

12 courts, fewer lines, more confusion

Twelve courts with overlapping lines, and two small waiting areas

Make sure you read our section about overlapping lines above before you proceed.

By now, you probably already know that we prefer layouts without overlapping lines. If you are already convinced, feel free to skip this section.

This layout might look pleasant when viewed from above because it is made of relatively few lines. But when you play, your court might be made of all lines of one color and some lines of the other color, which certainly takes some getting used to. When focusing on the action, it's not always easy to remember which lines are relevant and which ones are not.

It is not just that your court is made of two different color lines. It is also that you will find on your court some lines of a specific color that are part of your court, and some other lines of that same color that are not part of your court.

Also, relevant lines will vary from court to court, and from one-side of a pickleball court to the other side of the same pickleball court.

On the picture below, slide the blue dot towards the left to compare a pickleball-on-top design to a tennis-on-top design. The line segments highlighted in green will switch color as you slide the blue dot.

More ▽
Waiting area Waiting area
Waiting area Waiting area

Pros and Cons ▽

Twelve courts with overlapping lines, and a single larger waiting area

Make sure you read our section about overlapping lines above before you proceed.

By now, you probably already know that we prefer layouts without overlapping lines. If you are already convinced, feel free to skip this section.

This layout might look pleasant when viewed from above because it is made of relatively few lines. But when you play, your court might be made of all lines of one color and some lines of the other color, which certainly takes some getting used to. When focusing on the action, it's not always easy to remember which lines are relevant and which ones are not.

It is not just that your court is made of two different color lines. It is also that you will find on your court some lines of a specific color that are part of your court, and some other lines of that same color that are not part of your court.

Also, relevant lines will vary from court to court, and from one-side of a pickleball court to the other side of the same pickleball court.

On the picture below, slide the blue dot towards the left to compare this design to the previous one.

More ▽
--> Waiting area
--> Waiting area

Pros and Cons ▽

Rental and Scheduling

Tennis courts as units of currency

The Seattle Parks Department gets some of its revenue by renting outdoor tennis courts to schools and to private individuals. It needs to be able to keep this rental revenue stream.

All tennis courts that were lined for pickleball during Seattle's 2017 Pickleball Pilot Project have lines for two pickleball courts: one pickleball court on each side of the tennis net. When people want to rent one pickleball court, the Seattle Parks Department rents them a tennis court with two pickleball courts.

Preserving the income Stream

Most of the court layouts considered in this document do not have exactly two-pickleball courts on each tennis court. How can the Seattle Parks Department accommodate this without having to redesign its current rental operation and without loosing revenue?

The solution is simple: Designate a pair of pickleball courts to correspond to each tennis court. Some pickleball courts won't be able to get rented, but that should not be an issue.

A practical example

Let's look at the layout currently planned by the Seattle Parks Department. We labeled the tennis courts 1 to 4. We labeled pairs of pickleball courts A through D.

With this layout the Seattle Parks Department is planning to offer the following four rental items

Below is the layout we recommend. We labeled the tennis courts 1 to 4. We labeled pairs of pickleball courts A through F.

Waiting area Waiting area 7.5' 5' 10' 10' 10' 10' 10' 5' 7.5' 8' 8' 8' 8'

We propose that the Seattle Parks Department offer the following four rental items:

Pickleball courts labeled B and E would not be available for rental.

Since both layouts allow the Seattle Parks Department to rent the same number of courts, the recommended layout is as good as the originally proposed layout from a revenue generation perspective.

The recommended layout actually offers a better opportunity for revenue when you consider the opportunity to rent all the pickleball courts at once for special events such as pickleball tournaments. In that case, the Seattle Parks Department would be able to charge rental fees for 12 pickleball courts with the recommended layout instead of 8 courts with the original layout.

Generalizing

In the example above, we showed how "designating a pair of pickleball courts to correspond to each tennis court" will allow the Seattle Parks Department to keep using its current court rental strategy with the newly recommended court layout. This strategy can be used successfully as well with all the other layouts suggested in this document.

Summary

This document presents the recommendations of the Seattle Metro Pickleball Association for establishing equitable tennis and pickleball court lines on the Bitter Lake pickleball and tennis courts in Seattle.

The presentation includes

The following table lists the guidelines and corresponding recommendations.

Guidelines Recommendations
Make efficient use of the available space Paint lines for 12 pickleball courts
Include a waiting area Include two waiting areas inside the fence
Avoid court line overlap Adopt independent (i.e., non-overlapping) lines
Optimize line colors Adopt contrasting line colors
Optimize line intersections Adopt blended line intersections
Support healthy aging Adopt an age-friendly surface

Make sure you view the full list of recommendations.

The End